This motu proprio of Ioannes XXIII reworks selected procedural norms for the election of a Roman Pontiff, modifying and supplementing Pius XII’s constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (1945). It details technical regulations on photography and recordings of a dying or deceased pontiff, funeral and burial arrangements, the role and election of the Camerlengo, the integrity of conclave enclosure, the number and vetting of conclavists, the formulation of oaths, the exclusion of civil vetoes, the secrecy of ballots and communications, and the formal confirmation of the two‑thirds requirement in conclave, presenting all as prudent adaptations to “changed circumstances” for the protection of the freedom and dignity of papal elections.

---

Ritualising Usurpation: How Ioannes XXIII Weaponised Procedure Against the Papacy

From Guardian of the Papal Office to Architect of Its Capture

The entire text is constructed on a colossal unspoken premise: that Ioannes XXIII is a true Roman Pontiff legitimately modifying the law for the election of his successors. Every paragraph presupposes what is precisely in question.

The motu proprio does not merely touch neutral technicalities. It codifies the juridical environment within which the entire post-1958 line of usurpers would be manufactured and shielded from any effective challenge. By wrapping this in solemn Latin and appeals to tradition, Ioannes XXIII performs a juridical sleight of hand: *formally* imitating previous Popes while *materially* eliminating traditional safeguards and moral pressures that had served to bind electors to the faith, to the temporal independence of the Holy See, and to the visible responsibilities of their act before Christ the King.

Key factual observations:

– The document explicitly subordinates all norms of Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis that conflict with its provisions to its own innovations.
– It reaffirms conclave secrecy and the condemnation of civil vetoes—on the surface a continuity—but at the same time:
– it rearranges the management of documentation and ballot results (XVI–XVII),
– it loosens the canonical “closing” of the conclave immediately after acceptance (XIX),
– it centralizes delicate levers (Camerlengo, Secretariat, custody of acts) in the very hands of the milieu that would engineer and consolidate the conciliar revolution.
– It anchors everything in a rhetoric of “prudence” and “changed circumstances,” the same naturalistic vocabulary of historical adaptation condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi.

Thus, under the guise of reverent fidelity to Pius XII, Ioannes XXIII manufactures a legal shell that can be inhabited by a different religion while claiming uninterrupted canonical form. This is the essence of *abusus formae* (abuse of form): using traditional juridical vesture to enthrone an alien content.

Technical Legalism as a Cloak for Doctrinal Apostasy

At the factual level, much of the motu proprio appears innocuous: regulation of photography, number of conclavists, wording of oaths, handling of correspondence. Yet the very choice to legislate minutely about technique while maintaining total silence about the supernatural doctrinal criteria of a Pope reveals the underlying inversion.

– Ioannes XXIII speaks with pathos of the importance of papal election for the Church, but never once recalls that the elected must be:
– Catholic in faith,
– orthodox in doctrine,
– free of heresy and suspicion of heresy,
– ready to defend, not negotiate away, the temporal independence of the Holy See,
– bound by the anti-modernist doctrinal stance solemnly expressed by his predecessors.

Instead, we get an obsessive sacramentalisation of secrecy:

– Elaborate oaths focus overwhelmingly on:
– not revealing conclave proceedings,
– not accepting or divulging civil vetoes,
– avoiding technological breaches (cameras, microphones, radio).
– The same intensity is not applied to:
– rejecting errors condemned in the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX,
– the modernist doctrines anathematised in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi,
– the obligation to uphold the social kingship of Christ, as taught in Quas Primas,
– the duty to resist Freemasonry and liberalism, explicitly unmasked by pre-1958 popes as a “synagogue of Satan” infiltrating states and seeking to enslave the Church.

Silence here is not neutral. *Qui tacet consentire videtur* (“he who is silent is seen to consent”). By reducing the gravest matter in the Church—the succession of Peter—to technical enclosure and formal ballots detached from doctrinal profession, Ioannes XXIII decouples legitimacy from faith. This contradicts the constant doctrine, expressed for example:

– by St. Robert Bellarmine: a manifest heretic cannot be Pope, because he is not even a member of the Church;
– by Pius IX (*Syllabus*): the Church possesses true and perfect society status, endowed with proper rights independent of the State;
– by Pius X (Lamentabili, Pascendi): modernism and dogmatic evolution cannot be tolerated; those propositions are condemned as heretical and destructive of the deposit of faith.

The motu proprio’s refusal to connect the act of election with these doctrinal boundaries betrays its real function: to legitimate, through procedural fetishism, the future enthronement of those very principles previously condemned.

The Language of “Changed Circumstances”: A Modernist DNA Marker

Already in the opening lines, Ioannes XXIII justifies his innovations:

“pro mutatis temporum rationibus” – “on account of changed circumstances of the times.”

This formula is the synthetic capsule of modernism:

– It assumes that juridical order must adapt to the “times” in a manner detached from immutable doctrinal criteria.
– It suggests that what was sufficient in 1945 must be “updated” in 1962—precisely as he is convoking the council that will unleash the conciliar sect.

Compare this mentality with the pre-1958 Magisterium:

– Pius IX in the Syllabus condemns the thesis that “Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the advancement of human reason” (prop. 5).
– Pius X in Lamentabili condemns the idea that dogmas are “interpretations” subject to historical evolution (e.g. prop. 22, 54, 58–60).
– Quas Primas (Pius XI) grounds peace and order not in dialogue with the “times” but in the unchanging reign of Christ the King over individuals and societies.

By shaping norms for papal election in the atmosphere of “aggiornamento,” Ioannes XXIII inscribes into the legal structure of the conclave the very spirit condemned as modernism: the Church must bend to history, not history submit to Christ’s Kingship through the Church.

This is not accidental nuance; it is a structural redirection. The new legislation says: we keep the shell (conclave, oaths, two-thirds), but the principle guiding adaptation is not the defense of immutable dogma against modern errors, but the harmonious integration of the papal institution into the “modern world.”

Secrecy Absolutised: Shielding a Revolution, Not Protecting a Deposit

The motu proprio’s central sections (VI–XV, XVII) are an intricate labyrinth of secrecy provisions:

– “secretum religiosissime ac quoad omnes… servaturos” – promise to observe secrecy “most religiously” in all matters concerning the election.
– Repeated threats of excommunication latae sententiae against anyone who:
– uses devices to transmit or receive information,
– discloses anything regarding ballots,
– violates the enclosure.

In Catholic tradition, secrecy serves a higher good: the freedom of the electors from external coercion, especially from secular powers, so that they may obey God and the Church’s faith. Ioannes XXIII keeps the instrument while subtly redefining what it protects:

– There is no linkage of that secrecy to the grave obligation to elect a man doctrinally safe, free from heresy and modernist sympathies.
– No explicit reminder that the College of Cardinals sins gravely if it knowingly chooses a proponent of condemned errors.
– No assertion that civil or occult pressures (e.g., masonic, paramasonic, ideological) are incompatible with divine law and invalidate moral legitimacy.

Instead, secrecy becomes an autonomous absolute, detached from any positive doctrinal requirement. It becomes ideal to cloak agreements, lobbies, and pre-arranged choices that conform to the world, provided only that no microphones and cameras betray the game.

Thus secrecy is inverted: from a shield for the faith to armour for apostasy.

Suppressing the Temporal Independence of the Holy See in Practice

In the oath formula (VI), Ioannes XXIII includes a striking clause about the temporal rights of the Holy See:

“promittimus… quicumque nostrum Romanus Pontifex… erit electus, eum iura spiritualia et temporalia — praesertim quae ad civilem Romani Pontificis principatum spectant — libertatemque Sanctae Sedis integre ac strenue asserere atque tueri”.

This sounds robust. Yet:

– It is purely verbal, inserted at the very moment when the same milieu is preparing the council that will, in practice, embrace religious liberty, state–Church separation, and reconciliation with liberal democracy—the very errors condemned in the Syllabus (55, 77–80).
– No concrete canonical mechanisms are reinforced to defend the Holy See’s independence against modern states, NGOs, and supranational powers.
– The rest of the motu proprio is saturated with distrust toward civil governments only insofar as they might revive the old royal veto. The new and more insidious forms of global ideological control—liberalism, human rights ideology, ecumenical blackmail, masonic pressure—are entirely ignored.

This selective “anti-interference” is hypocritical: it attacks the obsolete royal veto, while leaving untouched (and in practice facilitating) the far more pervasive interference of modern anti-Christian power structures that infiltrate through the very class of electors and their entourages.

Pius IX had unmasked these forces as masonic sects warring against the Church; Pius X had recognized modernism as their theological arm. Ioannes XXIII enshrines secrecy against kings of the past, while clearing the terrain for the kings of this world—finance, media, international networks—to operate invisibly.

Sanitised Formalism: No Guard Against a Manifest Heretic

One of the gravest omissions:

– The text does not once mention that if a man is a manifest heretic he cannot be elected validly, nor retain office.
– It does not recall the principle reiterated by theologians and pre-1958 discipline: *non Christianus nullo modo est Papa* (“a non-Christian in no way can be Pope”), and a manifest heretic is not Christian.
– It does not integrate into the conclave law the substance of Canon 188.4 (1917 Code) about tacit resignation by public defection from the faith, nor the principles behind *Cum ex Apostolatus Officio* of Paul IV, which declared null the election of one who had defected from the faith.

Instead, the motu proprio:

– fixes the two-thirds majority;
– choreographs burial and ceremony;
– refines secret handling of ballots;
– regulates gadgets.

This judicial positivism effectively says: canonical legitimacy of a “pope” is exhaustively defined by correct observance of procedures, silence, and numbers. The supernatural note—orthodoxy—is effaced. This contradicts the prior magisterial understanding that law serves the faith, not replaces it.

It is precisely this displacement that allows subsequent conclaves, operating within Ioannes XXIII’s paradigm and its later conciliarist expansions, to produce a series of men publicly preaching condemned doctrines (religious liberty, false ecumenism, collegiality, the cult of man, etc.) while claiming unassailable “legality.”

Symptom of the Conciliar Sect: The Church Reduced to a Political Corporation

On the symptomatic level, this motu proprio exemplifies the mutation of ecclesial self-understanding that culminates in the conciliar neo-church:

1. The Church is treated as a closed political-juridical corporation.
– What matters is who controls rules, archives, access.
– Conclavists are selected not primarily for holiness or doctrinal integrity, but for “integrity of morals, prudence, sincere religion towards the Holy See” (IX)—phrases so vague they can as easily describe loyal bureaucrats of the revolution.
– The supreme act of choosing Peter’s successor is sheltered by more anxieties about tape recorders than about modernist theology.

2. The supernatural realities central to Quas Primas are absent:
– No call to ensure a Pope who will defend the social reign of Christ the King over nations.
– No mention of the duty to oppose secularism, laicism, and the enthronement of man—precisely the “plague” denounced by Pius XI.
– No reference to eternal judgment, the salvation of souls, the danger of heresy—all replaced by the cult of institutional continuity.

3. The anti-modernist offensive of Pius IX and Pius X is silently buried.
– Lamentabili and Pascendi are not invoked as binding criteria.
– The Syllabus is effectively shelved by omission.
– The conclave is thus placed under a “neutral” regime in which those very errors can be enthroned as governing principles without juridical contradiction.

In short, Ioannes XXIII’s legislation is the juridical skeleton of the “conciliar sect”: an externally Catholic structure emptied of its integral doctrinal soul, perfectly designed to perpetuate itself and to bestow counterfeit legitimacy on its own anti-Catholic occupants.

The Irony of Condemning Civil Veto While Inviting Hidden Powers

The motu proprio very insistently:

– reiterates the absolute prohibition of any “Veto” or “Exclusiva” proposed by secular authorities (VI, X),
– anathematises any collaboration with such interference.

Historically, that prohibition defended the independence of the papacy from Catholic monarchs. Ioannes XXIII weaponises that venerable principle to:

– delegitimise explicit, traceable interventions while
– saying nothing about clandestine conditioning by anti-Christian forces condemned by prior popes: Freemasonry, liberal-parliamentary oligarchies, international bodies.

This selective vigilance facilitates a new, more dangerous capture:

– Royal vetoes were visible and could be resisted.
– Ideological vetos—“no one who rejects religious liberty,” “no one who will condemn socialism, ecumenism, or human rights”—can dominate the College of Cardinals without ever being placed in writing or “received” as a formal mandate.

The motu proprio’s absolute cult of secrecy, yoked to this narrow definition of “interference,” gives the perfect cover. The conclave becomes the sacrosanct black box in which the enemies of the Church, already enthroned in red, can secure succession without fear of exposure.

Pius IX warned that the state is not the source of all rights (prop. 39), and that masonry is the engine of war against the Church. Pius X identified modernists as the worst enemies, already inside. Ioannes XXIII’s legislation refuses to draw the obvious conclusion: the real danger to papal elections is not now Catholic crowned heads, but internal modernist conspirators and their external anti-Christian sponsors.

Concluding Judgment: An Elegant Machine for Producing Antipopes

Measured against the unchanging Catholic doctrine before 1958:

– The motu proprio is not an organic pastoral refinement; it is an integral piece in the re-engineering of papal elections to assure continuity of a new religion under the facade of canonical form.
– Its:
– dogmatically empty proceduralism,
– obsessive, absolute secrecy detached from doctrinal truth,
– invocation of “changed times” as primary motive,
– evasion of all anti-modernist, anti-liberal, anti-masonic safeguards,
– reduction of criteria for papal eligibility to silence and numbers,
constitute a juridical abdication of the Church’s duty to guarantee a Catholic occupant on the Chair of Peter.

An election law that refuses to distinguish between a confessor of the faith and a public modernist, that seals all deliberations even against legitimate scrutiny by future faithful and theologians, and that is crafted by a man already preparing the conciliar revolution, is not a neutral housekeeping decree. It is a conscious reconfiguration of the lock to fit the key of apostasy.

Therefore this motu proprio:

– does not safeguard the papacy;
– it institutionalises the possibility—and, given the corrupted College, the practical inevitability—of installing and perpetuating non-Catholic usurpers under a veneer of canonical correctness.

In other words: an elegant machine for manufacturing “popes” of the neo-church, meticulously sealed against the light of Catholic Tradition and against the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which alone is the source and measure of any true ecclesiastical authority.

---

Source:
Summi Pontificis electio   (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025