The document “Renovans faciem” of 26 April 1959, issued by John XXIII, is an apostolic letter announcing and regulating the beatification of Helena Guerra, foundress of the Oblate Sisters of the Holy Spirit (Sisters of St. Zita). It briefly recounts her life: her early piety, Eucharistic devotion, promotion of the cult of the Holy Ghost, charitable works, foundation of a congregation dedicated to girls’ education and to spreading devotion to the Holy Ghost, her trials and humiliations, the subsequent canonical processes, alleged miracles, and finally the concession of liturgical cult within specified territories. The entire text clothes John XXIII’s act in a seemingly traditional pneumatological and hagiographical narrative, while in reality it functions as an early programmatic manifesto: the Holy Ghost is subtly invoked as the legitimizing “new spirit” for the soon-to-be conciliar revolution and for a new “springtime” of a Church that will deny its own immutable foundations.

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The Instrumentalization of the Holy Ghost for a Coming Revolution

From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine, the core problem of this letter does not lie in its biographical details about Helena Guerra as such, but in its theological trajectory and subtext: the Holy Ghost is presented not as the divine Guardian of the already-delivered deposit of faith (*depositum fidei*), but as the pretext for an “aggiornamento” which John XXIII and his successors used to justify the conciliar overthrow.

The text’s opening lines are revealing. John XXIII laments the cooling of charity and religious indifference of the age, then immediately presents Helena Guerra as providentially raised to promote devotion to the Holy Ghost in “these times.” That, in itself, could sound pious. However, read in the historical context of 1959, immediately after his announcement of a council, this theological framing becomes a rhetorical weapon: the Holy Ghost is the banner under which a new orientation of the Church will proceed, an orientation that will, in fact, contradict the very Magisterium previously enacted in the name of the same Spirit.

The authentic Catholic doctrine, as expressed, for instance, by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII, teaches that:

– The Holy Ghost is given to preserve, not to mutate, revealed truth: *non nova, sed noviter* (not new things, but in a new way) in the legitimate sense, never as rupture.
– Dogma is immutable; any “development” is homogeneous, never contradictory (cf. Vatican I, *Dei Filius*).
– The Spirit is the soul of the Church, which is a visible, juridically structured, perfect society with divine constitution (cf. Syllabus of Errors, especially 19, 21, 23, 55).

This letter, issued by the man who shortly thereafter launched the council that enthroned religious liberty, false ecumenism, and the cult of man, must therefore be read as a seed-text of a new pneumatology: the Spirit as fluid principle of change, against the firm, anti-liberal stance of the pre-1958 Magisterium.

By canonically elevating Helena Guerra precisely as “apostle of the Holy Ghost” in 1959, John XXIII creates a devotional and symbolic platform to claim that the tremendous novelties he is about to unleash are “the work of the Holy Ghost.” In other words: the letter is not simply biographical; it is programmatic.

Selective Traditionalism: Borrowed Vocabulary, Subverted Direction

On a factual and linguistic level, the letter is draped in traditional imagery: citations from Scripture, invocation of the Holy Ghost, references to Leo XIII and Pius XII, emphasis on virtue, sacrifice, and charity. This ornamental orthodoxy is precisely what makes the text spiritually dangerous.

Key features:

– It heavily praises Helena’s promotion of devotion to the Holy Ghost and connects it explicitly with Leo XIII’s encyclical on the Holy Spirit (“Divinum illud munus”). This creates a line of apparent continuity: Leo XIII – Helena – John XXIII.
– It underscores her zeal for missions, Eucharistic devotion, Marian piety, love for the Church, her patience in humiliation, her charitable works.
– It describes rigorously the canonical procedure: processes, decrees on virtues, recognition of miracles, authorization of cult.

All this is standard pre-conciliar form. But form here masks intention.

The critical point:

– The letter in no way warns against the greatest real danger already denounced by St. Pius X: **Modernism within the Church** (*Pascendi*, *Lamentabili sane exitu*). There is no word about internal enemies, no naming of liberalism, rationalism, religious indifferentism, condemned systematically by Pius IX in the *Syllabus Errorum* and by his successors.
– Instead, by promoting a “new” emphasis on the Holy Ghost precisely on the eve of a council that will implement the very errors condemned by those popes, the text performs a quiet functional reversal: the Holy Ghost is no longer the divine opponent of liberalism and naturalism, but the alleged inspirer of adaptation to modernity.

This silence about Modernism and about doctrinal combat is not neutral; it is itself a symptom and accusation. As St. Pius X made clear in *Pascendi*, the gravest threat is the modernist infiltrator inside the Church. John XXIII, in this letter, presents a sanctity attuned to “our times” yet carefully omits the decisive front: the doctrinal war against Modernism. This omission betrays the nascent conciliar mentality.

Theological Misappropriation of Pneumatology

The document’s pivot is the thesis that Helena Guerra’s mission is to promote devotion to the Holy Ghost so that:

– “Immense abundance of heavenly gifts” may be poured out on the Church.
– The “wonders of Pentecost” may be renewed if the faithful adopt this form of piety with new fervour.

In itself, devotion to the Holy Ghost is Catholic and praiseworthy. But in the mouth and pen of John XXIII, who convoked a council explicitly in the key of optimistic accommodation to the world, the Pentecostal motif is transformed into a charter for innovation.

Several distorted tendencies emerge:

1. Ambiguous invocation of “renewal”:

– The very title “Renovans faciem” (“You renew the face [of the earth]”) is taken from Psalm 103(104):30 about the Spirit renewing the earth. Traditionally, spiritual and moral renewal through deeper fidelity to the same faith.
– Here, however, it becomes part of the narrative that “these times” require a special turning to the Holy Ghost; this rhetorical move is later used by the conciliar sect to justify doctrinal, liturgical, and ecumenical novelties. The language of spiritual renewal is weaponised to cover ecclesial revolution.

2. Replacement of doctrinal clarity by affective spirituality:

– The letter stresses affective devotion and “special cult” of the Holy Ghost, but does not once confront the doctrinal content of the Spirit’s action: preservation from error, rejection of heresy, condemnation of liberalism, defence of the rights of Christ the King and of His Church against the modern state.
– By divorcing devotion to the Holy Ghost from doctrinal militancy, the text insinuates a sentimental pneumatology compatible with Modernism’s idea of a living, evolving religious consciousness (precisely condemned in *Lamentabili* propositions 58–65 and in *Pascendi*).

3. Misaligned ecclesial priorities:

– When Pius XI in *Quas Primas* proclaimed the kingship of Christ, he explicitly linked the social reign of Christ with the condemnation of laicism, secularism, and indifferentism. The Holy Ghost’s work in the Church is inseparable from the public recognition of Christ’s royal rights over states.
– John XXIII’s letter is utterly silent about the social kingship of Christ, even though it laments indifference. There is no call for states to submit to Christ, no mention of the duty of civil authority to honour the true religion, directly contradicting the orientation of *Quas Primas* and the *Syllabus*.
– This silence prepares the way for the conciliar exaltation of “religious liberty” and for the abjuration of Christ’s public kingship, which Pius XI had expressly established as the antidote to modern apostasy.

In short: **the Holy Ghost is invoked without His own doctrine**. An empty, emotionally charged pneumatology, detached from dogmatic and social Kingship, is presented as a spiritual engine. This is precisely how the conciliar revolution cloaked itself: in the name of the Spirit against the letter of the prior Magisterium.

Beatification as Ideological Engineering

On the factual level, the letter meticulously follows the pre-1958 structure of a beatification decree: life, virtues, processes, miracles, concession of cult. Yet we must examine the ideological function of this choice.

Key elements:

– Helena Guerra’s central “charism” in this narrative is promoting devotion to the Holy Ghost, especially through:

– Encouraging special prayers before Pentecost.
– Inspiring Leo XIII’s acts regarding the Holy Ghost.
– Founding a congregation of Oblates of the Holy Ghost committed to education and piety.

– John XXIII positions her not merely as a local foundress, but as a providential sign that the Church must now intensify such devotion “in these times.”

The symptomatic questions:

– Why, among countless Servants of God, is a figure centred on the theme of “Spirit-led renewal” elevated precisely by the man who immediately afterwards will convoke a council which becomes the matrix of post-conciliar apostasy?
– Why is the Holy Ghost—the guarantor of doctrinal continuity—so insistently invoked by a man whose line (John XXIII onward) systematically dismantles doctrinal, liturgical, and disciplinary bulwarks erected by earlier popes precisely in the name of the same Spirit?

The answer, at the level of integral Catholic analysis, is clear: **beatifications and canonizations in the conciliar sect are systematically used as instruments of propaganda**, catechizing the faithful into acceptance of new emphases, “new models” of holiness that align with the new orientation.

In this case:

– The focalization on Helena’s Holy Ghost devotion is used to pre-legitimize a conciliar narrative: “The Spirit is doing something new; the Church must listen; those who oppose are enemies of the Spirit.”
– The same Holy Ghost previously invoked by Leo XIII and St. Pius X to condemn liberalism and Modernism is now rhetorically detached from those condemnations, leaving only an amorphous idea of spiritual “renewal” that will be later weaponised against the old order.

This is not authentic continuity. It is controlled demolition masked by devotional language.

Silence on Modernism and Freemasonry: A Grave Omission

An integral Catholic critique must focus on what this document omits:

– No reference at all to *Pascendi Dominici gregis* or *Lamentabili sane exitu*.
– No echo of the *Syllabus*’s anti-liberal, anti-indifferentist anatomy of errors.
– No mention of the grave, global conspiracy of Freemasonry against the Church, flagged repeatedly by Pius IX, Leo XIII, and others as a central enemy fostering secularism, laicism, and persecution.
– No warning that the true danger is precisely the internal penetration of these errors among clergy and theologians.

Instead, the analysis of “these times” is reduced to generic moral coldness and neglect of religion—a naturalistic, sociological diagnosis compatible with liberalism. This suggests that:

– The author refuses to name the ideological, doctrinal enemy.
– A vague spiritual remedy (more prayers to the Holy Ghost) is offered, severed from concrete doctrinal and disciplinary countermeasures.

This refusal is itself modernist: to speak of a “new Pentecost,” of “renewal,” while muting the concrete, juridical, doctrinal acts by which previous popes resisted the plague of that very modernity.

According to St. Pius X, Modernists hide under traditional vocabulary while emptying it from within. This letter exemplifies that method: traditional Latin prose, Scripture, Fathers; yet the real battle lines drawn by those same Fathers and popes are carefully not applied. The Spirit is invoked, but not as the Spirit who anathematizes error and preserves unchanging dogma.

Ecclesiology Subverted by Sentimental Hagiography

The text exalts Helena’s obedience, humility, and acceptance of humiliations—virtues indeed authentic in true saints. Yet within the context of the emerging conciliar order, this hagiographic emphasis can serve another agenda:

– It subtly catechizes the faithful to accept without resistance whatever is presented as “the will of God” by those in power, even if it contradicts prior magisterial teaching.
– It highlights that she accepted being deposed from leadership and withdrawn “into the shadows,” thereby creating an exemplar of docile, uncritical submission.

Under authentic Catholic doctrine, obedience is *rationabilis oboedientia*, subordinated to faith, never a blind acceptance of novelty against tradition. As Doctors and Fathers stress, *non est obediendum in malis* (there is no obedience in evils). But in the conciliar sect, “obedience” becomes an instrument to silence any opposition to revolution.

The beatification text:

– Never connects Helena’s virtues with combat against doctrinal error.
– Never presents her as a defender of integral doctrine against liberal infiltration.
– Instead, her sanctity is framed in terms of affective devotion and institutional docility.

Consequently, the letter’s hagiography becomes a kind of psychological conditioning: sanctity without doctrinal militancy, obedience without discernment, piety without resistance—precisely the profile of soul easiest to manipulate during a revolution.

Liturgical Cult as a Vehicle of the New Spirit

The letter concludes by:

– Granting liturgical cult to Helena Guerra as “Blessed.”
– Approving a proper Office and Mass from the Common of Virgins with special prayers.
– Restricting the cult to the Archdiocese of Lucca and houses of the congregation.

On its face, this is standard. Yet:

– By inserting into the liturgy a figure defined by her “mission” of promoting a new emphasis on the Holy Ghost interpreted by John XXIII, the conciliar sect begins slowly to reshape the spiritual horizon of Catholics.
– This anticipates the later torrent of post-conciliar beatifications and “canonizations” used systematically to canonize the revolution itself (e.g., figures aligned with ecumenism, religious liberty, collegiality, evolution of doctrine).

Here, in embryonic form, we see the same pattern: cultic recognition employed to shift emphasis from the clear anti-liberal, anti-modernist posture of the pre-1958 popes to a “Spirit”-centric, nebulous spirituality that can be invoked in favour of doctrinal accommodation and false ecumenism.

Authentic Catholic liturgy is *lex orandi, lex credendi*: the rule of prayer is the rule of belief. When the occupying structures of the Vatican manipulate the *lex orandi* by elevating figures and devotions suited to their program, they corrupt the *lex credendi* in the minds of the faithful. This letter is one such calculated step.

Contradiction with Pre-1958 Magisterium on the Church and the Spirit

To expose the bankruptcy of the mentality embedded in this letter, it suffices to confront its operative assumptions with the integral pre-1958 Magisterium:

1. On the role of the Holy Ghost:

– Authentic doctrine: the Spirit guards the deposit of faith, guarantees the infallibility of the Church in teaching faith and morals, and cannot contradict Himself across time.
– Operative suggestion here: the Spirit is invoked as authorization for “renewal” without reference to the binding anti-liberal, anti-modernist condemnations; the same Spirit who inspired *Pascendi* and the *Syllabus* is effectively set aside.

2. On the crisis of the age:

– Authentic doctrine: the principal error is liberal naturalism, indifferentism, rationalism, laicism, Masonic conspiracy against the Church (Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X).
– This letter: reduces the crisis to lukewarmness and worldly preoccupations without identifying ideological enemies—precisely the vague analysis beloved by Modernists.

3. On ecclesial response:

– Authentic doctrine: doctrinal clarity, condemnation of errors, reaffirmation of the exclusive rights of the Catholic Church and the Kingship of Christ (Quas Primas), discipline against heretics, defence against false ecumenism.
– This letter: emotional devotion to the Holy Ghost and the image of a humble foundress; no trace of doctrinal militancy; setting up a spiritual climate ripe for “pastoral” loosening and “openness.”

4. On saints and models:

– Authentic doctrine: saints are luminous confirmations of the same faith, the same sacraments, the same moral absolutes; their cult reaffirms what is already defined.
– Here: the foundress’ profile is tightly harnessed to a theme (Holy Ghost “renewal”) that serves as theological pretext for the upcoming council’s innovations.

This profound misalignment—using orthodox language to facilitate a heterodox agenda—reveals the inner spiritual contradiction: invocation of the Holy Ghost in the service of an ecclesial project that will trample on the very teachings previously promulgated in His name.

Symptoms of the Conciliar Sect’s Self-Presentation

Finally, the letter exhibits characteristic symptoms of what will become post-1958 posturing:

– Excessive emphasis on “times” and implied adaptation to them, instead of calling “the times” to conversion under Christ’s Kingship.
– An optimism that miracles and “new Pentecosts” are to be expected if only new devotions are embraced, while ignoring the hard doctrinal and disciplinary remedies demanded by earlier popes.
– The careful construction of a genealogy: Helena Guerra → Leo XIII → John XXIII → “Spirit of the Council.” The aim is to counterfeit continuity.

Yet, as Pius IX and St. Pius X made clear, any teaching or orientation that embraces condemned principles—religious liberty understood as indifferentism, equality of religions, democratization of the Church, the supremacy of conscience against dogma—is not development but betrayal.

Thus, a text like “Renovans faciem” already bears the DNA of the conciliar sect: it empties the supernatural of its obligatory doctrinal form and lets an amorphous “Spirit” float free, ready to be invoked against Tradition itself.

The Holy Ghost is not the patron of doctrinal evolution, of ecumenical relativism, or of the cult of man. He is the Spirit of Truth, the author of the anti-liberal Magisterium, the defender of Christ’s social Kingship, the enemy of Secret Societies, the protector of the unbloody Sacrifice and of the immutable sacraments. Any attempt—such as this letter—to mobilize Him without confessing and defending those very truths is spiritually suspect and, in its historical effect, gravely pernicious.

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Source:
Renovans faciem, Litterae Apostolicae Venerabilis Dei Famula Helena Guerra, Virgo, Instituti Oblatarum Spiritus Sancti, Vulgo Sororum A Sancta Zita, Fundatrix, Beata Renuntiatur, XXVI Aprilis a. 1959   (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025