This Latin letter of John XXIII, addressed to Thomas Tien and the hierarchy of Taiwan on the erection of three new dioceses and the consecration of three Chinese bishops, presents itself as paternal encouragement and a celebration of hierarchical expansion and missionary zeal. It exalts the visibility of ecclesiastical structures, stresses communion with the Roman See as the condition of belonging to the Church, and reads the promotion of local bishops as a sign of the universal “Catholic” vitality and a pledge of future renewal in mainland China. In reality, this text is a programmatic monument of the new conciliar mentality: an ideological self‑canonization of the emerging neo‑church, masking the abandonment of integral doctrine under a triumphalist rhetoric of “mission,” “unity,” and “pastoral care.”
Conciliar Self-Glorification under the Mask of Mission in China
Instrumentalizing Chinese Catholics for the Conciliar Revolution
On the factual level, John XXIII’s letter turns the suffering of Chinese Catholics into a stage-prop for his own budding revolution.
He opens by rejoicing that every occasion to address communities in mission lands fills him with “paternal consolation,” since nothing is “more pleasing” to the “Supreme Pastor” than to speak to clergy and faithful who manifest that the “Catholic Church flourishes with abundance of life and perpetual youth.”
This tone is programmatic:
– It shifts attention from the crucified Church to an image-managed, optimistic entity celebrating its own institutional growth.
– It treats hierarchical expansion as self-validating evidence that what speaks from Rome is the true Catholic Church, precisely at the historical threshold where, in reality, doctrinal demolition is being prepared.
Note the central paragraph in which he exalts the creation of Hsinchu, Tainan, Kaohsiung and the consecration of three Chinese bishops as luminous epiphany of catholicity:
English: “Together with the missionary prelates they showed that the Church of Jesus Christ is one and catholic, earnestly calling the wandering sheep to the one fold and one Shepherd, the bishop of our souls, and that the Catholic Church, which by its nature can reach all and bring them to salvation, can also restore all things in Christ, that is, the affairs and civil culture of peoples; finally, that it can, by supernal power, permeate the progress of this bold and exalted age and embrace the whole human race, making it the Mystical Body of Christ.”
Latin:
una cum Missionalium Praesulum agmine … luculentissime ostenderunt atque testati sunt, Iesu Christi Ecclesiam unam et catholicam esse, eamque errantes oves ad unum ovile et ad unum Pastorem, episcopum animarum nostrarum, summo studio impensaque cura advocare; catholicam dicimus Ecclesiam, quae cum suapte natura possit omnes attingere homines eosque ad salutem perducere, potest etiam instaurare omnia in Christo, hoc est populorum res omnes eorumque civilem cultum; cuiusque denique est superna vi afficere audacis elatique huius saeculi progressus, atque universum hominum genus complecti illudque mystici Iesu Christi corpus efficere.
The rhetoric is deliberately double:
– On the surface, it borrows the orthodox phrase “instaurare omnia in Christo” (*to restore all things in Christ*, cf. Eph 1:10), echoing St. Pius X.
– In substance, it subtly bends this toward the conciliar program: the Church as a universal, elastic organism that “embraces the whole human race” and “permeates the progress of this bold age,” sliding toward the idea that humanity as such, modern civilization as such, are already quasi-sacramental material of the Mystical Body.
Here lies the key perversion: the true Magisterium teaches that only the baptized, professing the true faith and subject to legitimate pastors under the Roman Pontiff, belong to the Mystical Body. Pius XII, in Mystici Corporis, defined this with juridical clarity: there is no automatic inclusion of “the whole human race.” John XXIII’s formula anticipates the Vatican II deformation in Lumen Gentium, where the borders of the Church are ambiguously dissolved into “elements” and concentric circles. The Chinese missions become a laboratory and showcase of this new ecclesiology.
Language of Sentimental Paternalism as a Tool of Usurpation
The linguistic fabric of the letter is revealing. It is saturated with:
– syrupy paternal invocations (“Dilecte Fili Noster ac Venerabiles Fratres”),
– emotive satisfaction at “youthful flourishing,”
– carefully orchestrated optimism about structures and statistics.
Simultaneously, a cold, juridical assertion is threaded through this sentimental veil: belonging to the Church is bound to communion with “the visible head, the Roman Pontiff,” meaning John XXIII himself.
He cites and paraphrases St Paul:
English: “For though you have ten thousand pedagogues in Christ, yet not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I have begotten you.”
Latin:
«Nam si decem millia paedagogorum habeatis in Christo: sed non multos patres. Nam in Christo Iesu per Evangelium ego vos genui» (1 Cor. 4, 15).
This authentic Pauline principle—episcopal paternity rooted in fidelity to the deposit of faith—is weaponized to bolster his own authority precisely as he prepares to convoke the “Second Vatican Council” and to inaugurate the systematic dilution of that same deposit. The tone is classic: sugary, “pastoral,” non-combative. But the content claims for an incipient revolutionary regime the continuity and obedience owed only to the true Papacy.
The sentimental vocabulary without doctrinal severity is itself a mark of modernist infiltration:
– no hard denunciation of Communism’s intrinsic Satanic war against Christ the King (in stark contrast with Pius XI’s Divini Redemptoris),
– no explicit reaffirmation of the absolute necessity of the integral Catholic faith for salvation,
– no call to public recognition of the Social Kingship of Christ over China and its rulers, as demanded in Quas Primas.
Instead, partial truths are deployed in a soft-focus style that numbs vigilance and habituates pastors to think in terms of “missionary expansion,” “local hierarchy,” and “adaptation,” while the Faith is being redefined in the background.
Ecclesiology Twisted: True Premises, Conciliar Conclusion
A pivotal passage insists:
English summary: John XXIII affirms that no one can render due worship to God except through Christ; no one can be united with Christ except in and through the Church, His Mystical Body; no one can belong to the Church except through the bishops, successors of the Apostles, united with the Supreme Pastor, successor of Peter.
Latin core:
Scilicet debitum Omnipotenti Deo exhibere cultum cum eoque coniungi neminem posse, nisi per Iesum Christum; non posse vero coniungi cum Christo, nisi in Ecclesia et per Ecclesiam, quae est mysticum eius corpus; non posse denique ad Ecclesiam pertinere, nisi per Episcopos, Apostolorum successores, cum Supremo Pastore coniunctos, qui successor est Petri.
Taken in isolation, this expresses traditional doctrine. But its application is fatally falsified:
– It presupposes that John XXIII, architect of aggiornamento, is truly the successor of Peter in the Catholic sense.
– It presupposes that all bishops in hierarchical communion with him constitute the authentic Apostolic hierarchy.
– It ignores the doctrinal condition: bishops and a “Pope” who publicly deviate into heresy cannot be true pastors of the Mystical Body.
Here the pre-1958 doctrine, clarified by theologians such as St Robert Bellarmine, Wernz-Vidal, and affirmed in the 1917 Code (Canon 188 §4), stands as a sword against this misuse:
– A manifest heretic is no member of the Church and therefore cannot be its head.
– Public defection from the faith vacates office ipso facto; no man can be head of a body to which he does not belong.
– The faithful are not bound to union with a pseudo-pastor who preaches a new religion, nor with the bishops enthroned by that system.
John XXIII’s letter uses orthodox formulas to smuggle in the usurper principle: *ubi Ioannes, ibi Ecclesia* (where John is, there is the Church), regardless of what doctrine he is about to impose. This is the embryonic “Church of the New Advent”: visibility, geographical spread, canonical structures—without the guarantee of doctrinal integrity.
Omission of Christ the King and the Social Order: Betrayal by Silence
From the perspective of pre-1958 doctrine, the most damning aspect is not what is said, but what is left unsaid.
Pius XI in Quas Primas taught with crystalline force:
– Peace and order among nations are impossible unless they recognize the public reign of Christ the King.
– States and rulers sin gravely if they refuse public homage and legal submission to Christ’s law.
– Secularism is a plague that must be condemned; civil laws and schools must submit to the Church.
In this letter to Chinese prelates—addressing a region enslaved by atheistic Communism and a nationalist regime both opposed to the true reign of Christ—John XXIII:
– does not command or even clearly urge the public proclamation of Christ’s royal rights over society;
– does not explicitly name the Communist persecution as a satanic system to be rejected under pain of sin;
– does not warn Catholic rulers (where any influence still exists, e.g. on Taiwan) that they must legislate according to the law of Christ and privilege the true religion;
– offers no call to Catholic resistance against secular or totalitarian encroachments as demanded by Pius IX’s Syllabus and other acts.
Instead, he speaks in vague terms of the Church’s capacity to “renew civil culture” and “permeate the progress of this bold age”:
this is the embryo of the conciliar adaptation to liberalism and socialism, the prelude to Dignitatis Humanae’s betrayal, where the duty of States to recognize the one true Church is abandoned in favor of “religious freedom.”
Silence here is not neutrality; it is complicity. While Pius IX anathematizes the separation of Church and State, the cult of human rights detached from truth, and the pretension of States to regulate ecclesiastical affairs, John XXIII’s language avoids the clash. He replaces militancy with “dialogical” optimism. The omission of the Social Kingship of Christ is thus a concrete contradiction of Quas Primas, achieved not by explicit denial, but by systematic eclipse.
Ambiguous Compassion for the Persecuted: A Sedative, Not a Sword
John XXIII touches the tragedy of Catholics in mainland China, mentioning their “sufferings,” the apparent withering of apostolic works established under Pius XII, and rumors about those who claim to be Catholic while severing communion with Rome.
He states that such positions—professing Catholicism while rejecting union with the visible head—are unacceptable, yet he immediately:
– softens the issue with “paternal” hope that reports may be exaggerated,
– refrains from issuing a clear, canonical condemnation,
– invites everyone to pray, while avoiding hard doctrinal lines.
This rhetorical strategy has two effects:
1. It sounds merciful and humble.
2. It avoids articulating the traditional principle that a parallel, state-manipulated “church” cut off from the Papacy is schismatic and that collaboration with it endangers salvation.
But deeper still, this entire passage is vitiated by irony:
– John XXIII denounces those who seek a “Catholic” identity without union to the (putative) Roman Pontiff.
– Yet he himself inaugurates a conciliar structure that will demand the faithful accept liturgical revolution, religious liberty, ecumenism, and doctrinal evolution—precisely what was condemned by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X and Pius XII.
Thus the letter weaponizes the orthodox principle of communion against suffering Chinese Catholics, to tie them to a center that is preparing apostasy. The persecuted are asked to risk their lives to remain faithful to a hierarchy that will in a few years sacrifice the Social Kingship of Christ and sign accords with regimes and sects.
This is spiritual abuse under the guise of paternal concern.
Theological Perversion: From Mission to Humanistic Universalism
The theological core of the text betrays the emerging modernist program in several points:
1. Confusion between the supernatural Mystical Body and the “whole human race.”
– The idea of “embracing the whole human race and making it the Mystical Body of Christ” tends toward the condemned notion that all men, as such, or all cultures and “progress,” are already included in Christ.
– This aligns with the later conciliar and post-conciliar blasphemies of universal salvific optimism and “anonymous Christians,” opposed to the constant doctrine that outside the Church no one is saved unless through explicit or implicit, but real, submission to the true faith and hierarchy.
2. Subtle exaltation of “this bold age” instead of grave warning against its apostasy.
– Pius X, in Lamentabili and Pascendi, unmasks the cult of “modern man,” the myth of inevitable evolution, the subjection of doctrine to history.
– John XXIII admires modern progress and positions the Church as its inspirer and moderator, not as its supernatural judge. He prepares the “opening to the world” that will dissolve confessional clarity.
3. Replacement of militancy by irenic, horizontal encouragement.
– There is no call to mortification, to perseverance in the state of grace, to the Four Last Things.
– The sacrificial dimension of the Most Holy Sacrifice is not emphasized; the letter focuses on structures, works, numbers, and pastoral initiatives.
– This silence, combined with inflated humanistic language, corresponds exactly to the modernist tactic: keep formulas, evacuate content.
By omitting direct reaffirmation of propositions upheld in the Syllabus and Lamentabili—against indifferentism, evolution of dogma, the independence of States from the Church—this document becomes part of the practical repudiation of those magisterial acts. It is a step in the transition from *Ecclesia docens* (teaching, judging, condemning) to a neutralized “dialogical” body, slowly transforming into the paramasonic structure now seen.
Chinese Hierarchy as Showcase for the Neo-Church
John XXIII’s insistence on the three new Chinese bishops has a symbolic function.
He says, in sum:
– their consecration in St Peter’s Basilica is a “new testimony” and “new pledge” of the Holy See’s care for the Chinese people;
– it shows that the “Christian faith is by no means foreign” to the Chinese nation, contrary to claims that it is Western.
The underlying message:
– The conciliar regime presents itself as champion of “inculturation” and “local leadership,” against accusations of Western domination.
– The Chinese hierarchy is drawn into the global conciliar framework as proof of universality.
But what kind of universality?
– Not the unity of the one true Roman Catholic Church guarding unchanged doctrine.
– Rather, a global network of episcopal conferences and local hierarchies synchronized with an aggiornamento agenda: liturgical subversion, ecumenism, religious freedom, and eventually open complicity with anti-Christian regimes.
By 1961, the blueprint is evident:
– Promote local hierarchies,
– Bind them emotionally and ceremonially to the “Pope,”
– Then use that bond to impose the new religion at Vatican II and beyond.
The Chinese bishops, thus exalted, are expected to become transmission belts of conciliar ideology among their flock. Their faithful perseverance under Communist persecution is co-opted to legitimize a leadership that will abandon the integral condemnation of Communism at the Council itself.
Naturalistic Humanitarianism and the Erasure of the Supernatural Combat
A properly Catholic missionary letter—especially into a region crushed by militant atheism—would:
– denounce false religions and ideologies explicitly;
– call souls to conversion from idolatry, superstition, and unbelief;
– insist on penance, the Cross, and fidelity to the Most Holy Sacrifice;
– proclaim the exclusive truth of the Catholic faith and the doom of societies that reject Christ the King.
What do we find here?
– Praise of schools, hospitals, social works, “charity initiatives”;
– Satisfaction over numerical growth and organizational development;
– Generic appeals for cooperation between local and foreign clergy.
All of this, considered in isolation, could be legitimate. But its imbalance—social and institutional accent without corresponding doctrinal militancy—reveals a naturalistic, humanitarian mentality characteristic of the conciliar sect:
– Faith reduced to cultural presence and “service” to man;
– Mission reduced to institutional implantation and dialogue, rather than the urgent rescue of souls from eternal damnation.
This is precisely the spirit condemned as Modernism’s fruit:
– The substitution of the supernatural order with immanent “progress,”
– The domestication of the Cross,
– The refusal to confront the world, the flesh, and the devil as enemies.
John XXIII’s honeyed phrases about the “beautiful island,” “noble nation,” and “youthful flourishing” function as anesthetic. The readers are lulled into complacency: if Rome smiles and speaks sweetly, there is no crisis—though in fact the greatest doctrinal crisis in Church history is being prepared.
Systemic Fruit of the Conciliar Usurpation
This letter is not an isolated curiosity; it is symptomatic.
1. It comes from John XXIII, the first in the line of usurpers who:
– convened a “pastoral” council to revise doctrine in practice;
– rehabilitated the errors previously condemned;
– opened the doors to false ecumenism, religious freedom, and liturgical profanation.
2. It employs:
– Orthodox vocabulary without the corresponding anathemas;
– Sentimental paternalism as a substitute for precise doctrinal teaching;
– Pastoral generalities where the pre-1958 Popes spoke with juridical clarity.
3. It prepares:
– A Church oriented to the world, to international admiration, to the applause of secular powers;
– A hierarchy trained to obey a new magisterium which quietly sets aside the Syllabus, Quas Primas, Lamentabili, the anti-modernist oath, and the clear condemnation of secret societies and unbelief.
The very fact that this document, now hosted by the official structures occupying the Vatican, is presented as part of an unbroken continuum of “Magisterium” is itself a lie:
– Its style, omissions, and subtexts betray the rupture;
– Its author is part of the chain of those who taught or imposed what previous Popes anathematized.
Non est continuum (“there is no continuity”) between:
– Pius IX who condemned liberalism and laicism;
– Pius X who declared Modernism “the synthesis of all heresies”;
– Pius XI who proclaimed the duty of States to submit to Christ the King;
– Pius XII who defended the juridical, visible reality of the Mystical Body;
and
– John XXIII who smiles upon “this bold age,” refuses to condemn its idols, and opens the way for a council that enthrones man at the center.
This letter, ostensibly about Formosa and three dioceses, is one more stone in the façade constructed to hide the internal demolition of the fortress.
Conclusion: A Manifesto of the Neo-Church in Missionary Dress
Read with integral Catholic criteria, John XXIII’s Quotiescumque nobis:
– cloaks the conciliar sect’s self-assertion in missionary rhetoric;
– subtly distorts authentic ecclesiology by identifying communion with a future heretical magisterium as the criterion of belonging;
– suppresses the non-negotiable demands of Christ the King over States and societies;
– replaces supernatural combat with diplomatic optimism and humanitarian activism;
– instrumentalizes the heroism and suffering of Chinese Catholics to legitimize a regime destined to betray them.
Beneath the devout Latin and the citations of Scripture, we see the profile of that paramasonic structure which will soon enthrone religious liberty, ecumenism, and the cult of man. The Chinese faithful are urged to cling to a “visible head” who is already preparing to sign away the very doctrines for which they are bleeding.
Here the words of pre-conciliar Magisterium stand as a tribunal over this document. Measured by Quas Primas, the Syllabus, Lamentabili, and the perennial teaching on the Papacy and the Mystical Body, Quotiescumque nobis is not a luminous act of Catholic mission, but an early doctrinally hollow proclamation of the Church of the New Advent.
Source:
Quotiescumque Nobis, Epistula Apostolica ob tres dioeceses in Insula Formosa noviter erectas, XXIX Iunii MDCCCCLXI, Ioannes PP. XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025