The document “Quemadmodum Apostolici” of 3 May 1960, issued by John XXIII as an apostolic letter, erects a new Apostolic Delegation for the territories of Madagascar, Réunion, and Mauritius, with its seat in Tananarive, granting it the usual faculties, privileges, and indults proper to such delegations, and declaring all contrary dispositions null and void.
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine, this brief text is not a neutral administrative act, but an early tectonic tremor of the coming conciliar revolution, cloaking the self-destruction of papal authority in the pious rhetoric of missionary zeal.
Jurisdiction Without Faith: The Paradox at the Root
John XXIII presents the act in the traditional legal form: invoking the “conscience of the Apostolic office,” appealing to the necessity of promoting the ends of religion and salvation of souls, and, on the basis of *motu proprio, certa scientia ac matura deliberatione* (by his own initiative, certain knowledge and mature deliberation), canonically erecting the Apostolic Delegation of the Islands of Madagascar.
At the factual and canonical surface:
– The act imitates classical papal style: territorial delimitation, erection of a delegation, location of the seat, attribution of *officia, privilegia atque indulta*, and the standard clause of nullity regarding any contrary attempts.
– It integrates the mission fields of Madagascar, Réunion, and Mauritius more tightly into the centralized diplomatic and administrative grid of Rome.
– It is promulgated under the authority of John XXIII, prior to the opening of Vatican II, and co-signed administratively by Domenico Tardini.
However, this entire structure rests on a decisive, non-negotiable Catholic principle defined before 1958: no authority against the faith can validly exercise the power of Peter. When the one legislating is himself the inaugurator of the conciliar apostasy—religious liberty, ecumenism, collegialism, the cult of man—then these apparently “orthodox” administrative acts manifest a deeper contradiction: *auctoritas sine veritate non est auctoritas* (authority without truth is no authority).
The letter’s external continuity of style thus becomes the mask of internal rupture.
Factual Level: The Harmless Facade of Missionary Administration
The text states, in substance (paraphrased for clarity):
– “As the conscience of Our Apostolic office demands, those things must be carefully carried out which can best serve to extend the ends of religion and provide for the salvation of souls.”
– Therefore, having heard Cardinal Gregory Peter Agagianian, and “by Our Apostolic authority,” John XXIII erects:
– The Apostolic Delegation of the Island of Madagascar,
– Encompassing Madagascar, Réunion, Mauritius,
– With its seat in Tananarive,
– Endowed with all rights and faculties proper to such delegations,
– With all contrary provisions declared null.
On the surface:
– This is a standard missionary-government measure: structuring the Holy See’s presence in mission territories.
– It follows the classic idea that the papacy coordinates missions, protects doctrine, and ensures disciplined development of ecclesiastical jurisdictions.
– Nothing overtly heretical is stated; no explicit doctrinal novelty is proclaimed.
However, integral Catholic evaluation is not limited to counting explicit heresy in a single page. We must:
– Read the act in the light of the known doctrinal trajectory of its author.
– Confront its implicit ecclesiological vision with the magisterium prior to 1958.
– Expose how such documents served as infrastructure for the conciliar subversion of mission theology.
The mask of normality is itself part of the strategy: to acclimatize the faithful to obedience toward a changing religion.
Rhetoric of Piety, Machinery of Revolution
The linguistic form seeks to anesthetize discernment.
Key features:
1. Invocation of “Apostolic conscience”
– The text begins by appealing to the “conscience of the Apostolic office” as demanding the promotion of religion and salvation of souls.
– In traditional teaching, such conscience is strictly bound to *traditio integra* (the full handed-down faith), not to personal pastoral experiments.
– Under John XXIII, this language is quietly detached from dogmatic vigilance and reoriented toward structural, diplomatic, and “pastoral” expansions that later serve a different gospel: ecumenism and religious liberty.
2. Technocratic legalism
– Formulae like motu proprio, certa scientia ac matura deliberatione, Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine imitate the solemn juridical style of true popes.
– Yet, when the same person will convoke Vatican II, promote the aggiornamento program, and open the doors to condemned errors (precisely those enumerated by Pius IX in the Syllabus and by St. Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi), such formulae become a juridical costume worn by a subversive.
– This reveals the essence of post-1958 governance: revolutionary content under impeccably styled parchment.
3. Sanitized language about “mission”
– There is no mention of:
– necessity of conversion to the one true Church for salvation;
– danger of false religions;
– condemnation of Freemasonry and secret societies actively operating in colonial and post-colonial elites (as denounced by Pius IX);
– Christ’s social Kingship as binding on emerging nations (taught forcefully by Pius XI in *Quas Primas*).
– Instead, one finds a generic advancement of “the ends of religion,” a phrase that can be—and later is—emptied and reinterpreted in an ecumenical, relativistic, humanitarian sense.
This stylistic caution is symptomatic: silence where previous popes thundered; vague “religion” where tradition spoke of the one Catholic Church; administration without dogmatic edge, preparing the descent into doctrinal neutralism.
Theological Level: Mission Torn from the Kingship of Christ
From pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, missionary and ecclesiastical organization rests on several immutable pillars:
– The Church is the only ark of salvation; outside her, no one is saved who culpably remains separated.
– The purpose of missions is the conversion of infidels, heretics, and schismatics to the Catholic Church.
– The Roman Pontiff governs as visible head, defending doctrine and imposing Christ’s Kingship over nations.
– All ecclesiastical structures exist *propter salutem animarum in veritate fidei* (for the salvation of souls in the truth of the faith).
In “Quemadmodum Apostolici”:
– The act is presented as ordered to “the ends of religion” and “salvation of souls,” but:
– There is no explicit confession that the Catholic Church is the one true Church to which peoples of Madagascar, Réunion, and Mauritius must be converted.
– There is absolutely no reference to the public rights of Christ the King over societies and states, which Pius XI solemnly insisted must be publicly recognized if there is to be true peace and order.
– There is complete silence about the enemies Pius IX identified as principal actors in subverting Catholic nations: liberalism, secret societies, naturalism.
Some will claim: “This is merely a brief technical act; not every document must repeat dogma.” That objection collapses when we consider:
– Before the modernist revolution, even administrative documents breathe the same theological air: clarity about one true Church, condemnation of error, supernatural finality.
– Here, the silence is not isolated. It is one note in a larger score:
– John XXIII’s opening to “dialogue” with the world;
– His discontinuation of the militant, anti-liberal language of Pius IX and St. Pius X;
– His preparation for Vatican II, which will enthrone religious liberty and ecumenism in direct opposition to the Syllabus and to Quas Primas.
Thus even when the text imitates orthodoxy, it functions within a theological project condemned by the pre-1958 magisterium: a Church which ceases to command nations to bow to Christ, and instead reorganizes missions as laboratories of interreligious coexistence.
From Catholic Missions to Conciliar Laboratories
Symptomatically, this letter centralizes authority over mission territories into a diplomatic Delegation at the very historical moment when the conciliar revolution is about to redefine “mission” as:
– dialogue rather than conversion,
– inculturation rather than subjugation of error,
– “people of God” horizontalism rather than hierarchical, supernatural society.
In integral Catholic understanding:
– An Apostolic Delegation should serve:
– the defense of doctrinal purity,
– the enforcement of anti-modernist measures,
– the protection of native faithful against liberal, Masonic, and syncretic influences,
– the gradual erection of fully Catholic hierarchies subject to Rome in the traditional sense.
Under John XXIII and his successors in the conciliar sect:
– Such delegations became:
– channels for spreading the new ecclesiology,
– vectors of liturgical corruption (introduction of the anti-liturgical reforms, then the New Rite),
– instruments for imposing religious liberty and ecumenism in mission lands,
– diplomatic tools to ingratiate the pseudo-church with anti-Catholic, often Masonic, regimes.
Therefore:
– The act of 1960 is not neutral.
– It prepares a transmission belt: from the structures occupying the Vatican to the peripheries, in order to export not the faith of Pius IX and Pius X, but the “new orientation” that would formally explode at Vatican II.
Lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of praying is the law of believing) has a corollary:
lex gubernandi, lex docendi (the law of governing is the law of teaching).
When one who will promote doctrinal novelties reorganizes jurisdiction, his governance is ordered to those novelties.
The Silent Betrayal: What the Letter Does Not Dare to Say
The gravest indictment lies not in any explicit falsehood in this short text, but in its omissions—especially when viewed against the burning clarity of prior magisterium.
Measured against Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors:
– No reaffirmation that:
– The Catholic Church alone has divine right to teach and govern;
– The state has a duty to recognize and support the true religion;
– The separation of Church and State is condemned;
– Religious indifferentism, liberalism, and naturalism are mortal plagues.
Measured against Pius XI’s Quas Primas:
– No reference to:
– Christ’s universal Kingship over individuals, families, and societies;
– The obligation of nations (including young post-colonial entities) to publicly submit to Christ’s law;
– The condemnation of laicism as a social apostasy.
Measured against St. Pius X’s Lamentabili and Pascendi:
– No trace of:
– Vigilance against modernism in seminaries, missions, and episcopates;
– The necessity of combating evolutionary, historicist, and relativist theology that already in 1960 is widely diffused in Europe and exported to mission territories.
Instead, the document:
– Treats mission lands as administrative zones to be better managed.
– Assumes that proper territorial delegation itself suffices as an instrument of “salvation of souls.”
– Ignores the primary necessity: integral doctrine, integral worship, integral discipline.
This bureaucratic supernaturalism—pretending that re-zoning alone advances salvation, while doctrine is being poisoned—reveals the spiritual bankruptcy at work.
Continuity in Form, Rupture in Substance: The Conciliar Method
From a symptomatic angle, “Quemadmodum Apostolici” exemplifies the post-1958 method:
1. Maintain external canonical and liturgical forms:
– Latin language,
– classical curial style,
– apparent homage to tradition.
2. Internally redirect the purpose:
– from militant, exclusive Catholicism to a vague religious humanitarianism,
– from affirming the rights of Christ the King to accommodating pluralist and Masonic regimes,
– from guarding the flock against modernism to integrating modernism as official orientation.
3. Use innocuous administrative acts:
– to extend the reach of the emerging neo-church into all territories,
– ensuring that when the doctrinal revolution is formally promulgated, the channels of enforcement are already in place.
In other words:
– This letter is a cog in the machinery of the *abominatio desolationis* (abomination of desolation) that would soon manifest liturgically, doctrinally, and pastorally.
Invalidity of the Conciliar Sect’s Juridical Acts in Principle
Integral Catholic theology before 1958 teaches clearly:
– A manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church:
– As expounded by St. Robert Bellarmine and classical theologians: a public, notorious heretic ceases to be a member of the Church and therefore cannot be its head.
– Canonical authority exists to guard and apply divine and natural law, not to overthrow it.
– When a putative pope publicly promotes condemned doctrines—religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality understood against Vatican I’s teaching—he reveals that his “authority” serves another body: a parallel, adulterous structure.
John XXIII is the inaugurator of that line of usurpers.
Therefore, in principle:
– Even apparently “orthodox” acts, like creating an Apostolic Delegation, are juridically embedded in an authority that is turned against the faith.
– As such acts are ordered to consolidating the conciliar sect’s control over territory and hierarchy, they do not bind the faithful who cling to the integral Catholic faith.
– The real successors of the apostles are those bishops and priests who:
– preserve the Catholic faith whole and inviolate,
– maintain the Most Holy Sacrifice in its traditional rite and theology,
– reject modernist novelties and the usurping anti-popes.
The Madagascar Delegation erected in 1960 becomes, in the concrete history of post-conciliarism:
– An instrument to impose the New Rite,
– A platform for religious dialogue and syncretistic “inculturation,”
– A chain of command linking local structures to the paramasonic neo-church in Rome.
Thus, this letter’s claim to be an exercise of “Apostolic” authority is already internally contradicted by the subsequent, foreseeable use of that authority against the deposit of faith.
Mission Territories as Targets of Neo-Church Experimentation
It is necessary to underline how precisely such acts prepared the destruction of Catholic life in mission territories:
– Once the conciliar process was unleashed:
– The same Delegation and successor nunciatures became centers of enforcement for:
– vernacularization and desacralization of worship,
– admission of pagan symbols and rites into pseudo-liturgy,
– collaboration with anti-Christian states and organizations under the pretext of “development,” “human rights,” and “dialogue.”
– The native faithful, who should have received the robust doctrine of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI and Pius XII, were instead exposed to:
– catechetical dilution,
– denial of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus in practice,
– false ecumenism with Protestant sects and non-Christian religions,
– moral corruption through the toleration or concealment of sacrileges and scandals.
In this light:
– The 1960 erection of the Delegation shows another dimension:
– It centralizes the vectors through which the conciliar virus will be injected.
– It binds young churches not to the Roman Pontiff in the sense of Vatican I, but to the conciliar regime already gestating.
Silence on the Real Enemies: Modernism and Freemasonry
An authentic Apostolic act concerning mission lands in the 20th century—faithful to Pius IX and St. Pius X—should have:
– Explicitly warned against:
– Masonic and liberal anti-Catholic forces in colonial and post-colonial politics.
– Syncretistic movements seeking to dilute Catholic dogma with indigenous religions.
– Protestant and rationalist propaganda undermining the faith.
– Reaffirmed:
– The duty of civil authorities to honour the true religion.
– The incompatibility of Catholicism with secret societies, condemned repeatedly as “synagogue of Satan.”
– The necessity of teaching catechism in its integrity, not as evolving “experience” of the community.
Instead:
– “Quemadmodum Apostolici” is entirely mute on these points.
– That muteness is not an accident; it is coherent with John XXIII’s general policy of softening, then shelving, militant teaching against modern errors.
– The same muteness would later enable:
– acceptance of religious liberty as a supposed “right,” condemned by Pius IX,
– glorification of “dialogue” and “human dignity” at the expense of Christ’s rights and the rights of His Church.
This is the spiritual bankruptcy exposed:
– Under the pretext of promoting salvation, the document refuses to name the real enemies of salvation as identified by the true magisterium.
– Under the pretext of continuity, it inaugurates a praxis of silence which is itself apostasy.
Conclusion: A Brief Text as an Omen of Systemic Apostasy
“Quemadmodum Apostolici” may appear a small, administrative enactment. But under the light of integral pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, it reveals:
– A governing subject (John XXIII) who will objectively act as founder of a new religion: the conciliar sect.
– A use of classical juridical formulas to consolidate the worldwide reach of structures later employed to:
– spread doctrinal novelties,
– deform the Most Holy Sacrifice,
– enthrone religious indifferentism and the cult of man.
– A symptomatic silencing of:
– the exclusive claims of the Catholic Church,
– the social Kingship of Christ,
– the condemnation of liberalism, modernism, and Freemasonry.
What claims to extend the reign of Christ by reconfiguring mission governance in fact prepares the enthronement of a new ecclesial order that denies in practice what Quas Primas solemnly proclaimed: that peace and salvation are only possible in the Kingdom of Christ, not in a humanitarian federation of religions.
The only faithful response is:
– to refuse to confuse such conciliar administrative structures with the indefectible Church of Christ,
– to adhere uncompromisingly to the magisterium and sacramental order as held before 1958,
– and to recognize that *salus animarum* (the salvation of souls) today demands resistance to the neo-church which this 1960 act silently helped to install across the nations.
Source:
Quemadmodum Apostolici (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025