Urbi Valentiae is a Latin apostolic brief of John XXIII dated 12 February 1960, in which he confers upon the cathedral church of Valencia in Venezuela, dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the title and privileges of a minor basilica, praising its antiquity, Marian devotion, and artistic beauty, and decreeing the act with the full usual canonical formulae. The text is short, administrative in tone, and appears pious and traditional on the surface—yet it stands as a revealing fragment of a pseudo-pontifical regime whose Marian and liturgical language serves as a façade for a revolution against the very Church it claims to honor.

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The Decorative Piety of a Revolutionary Regime

External Honors without Submission to the Kingship of Christ

At the factual level, the brief recounts:

In the city of Valencia in Venezuela, no small honor is added by the principal temple, dedicated to the heavenly Mother, for it is religious by antiquity, having been erected around 1580, remarkable for its size, commendable in structure, splendid in adornment, and graced with excellent paintings. To this majesty and charm is added spiritual beauty, since the temple is a principal seat of Marian piety… Hence, like a ray of light, religion is spread and diffused through the whole diocese of Valencia.

and therefore John XXIII, at the petition of the local hierarchy, elevates it to the rank of minor basilica, granting the usual rights and privileges.

On the surface, this is merely a confirmation of honor for a venerable Marian shrine. Yet precisely here the abyss opens:

– There is no explicit confession of the unique, exclusive sovereignty of Our Lord Jesus Christ over nations and governments, no echo of *Quas primas* where Pius XI teaches with full clarity that there can be no true peace until states publicly recognize and submit to the reign of Christ the King.
– There is no call to doctrinal purity, no warning against the already rampant Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili*.
– There is only a saccharine, museological Marianism, confined to art, architecture, and popular sentiment, perfectly compatible with the liberal, masonic world-system condemned in the *Syllabus* of Pius IX.

This is the essence of the conciliar project: preserve the decorative shell to sanctify the demolition within.

Linguistic Cosmetics: Pious Latin Draped over a Program of Subversion

The language is deliberately traditional: references to the temple’s antiquity, the coronation of the image in 1910 under St. Pius X, the diffusion of Marian devotion as a “ray of light,” the solemn canonical clauses (*ad perpetuam rei memoriam*, *certa scientia*, *plenitudo potestatis*, nullity of contrary acts). At a superficial reading, it seems irreproachably Catholic.

Yet several linguistic and rhetorical traits betray the underlying deformation:

1. Reduction of Religion to Aesthetic and Emotional Categories

The emphasis falls almost entirely on:
– age of the building,
– size and architectural structure,
– ornamentation and paintings,
– the popularity of a local image.

The supernatural order is present only in generic, atmospheric terms. We do not read of:
– the *Most Holy Sacrifice* offered there as propitiation for sins,
– the necessity of remaining in the state of grace,
– the dangers of heresy, indifferentism, and secular apostasy.

This corresponds exactly to the modernist tactic condemned by St. Pius X: dissolving dogma into religious feeling and cultural heritage. The temple becomes a museum of piety, not a fortress of the true Faith.

2. Bureaucratic Use of Marian Devotion as Institutional Legitimization

The brief leans heavily on devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help and recalls her crowning authorized by St. Pius X, as if to borrow the capital of a true Pope to cosmetically legitimize the acts of a man who, in turning towards aggiornamento, would soon inaugurate the doctrinal eclipse.

This is a rhetorical theft: employing the authority of St. Pius X—he who anathematized Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies”—as a kind of decorative credential for a regime preparing to enthrone precisely that synthesis in the “neo-church.”

3. Silentium eloquens (eloquent silence)

The magnificent silence is more damning than any phrase:
– Silence about the reign of Christ over states, directly contrary to the anti-liberal, anti-masonic doctrine of Pius IX and Pius XI.
– Silence about the mortal threat of Modernist theology, which by 1960 had already burrowed deeply into universities, seminaries, and “biblical institutes.”
– Silence about the absolute duty to reject religious indifferentism and the false notion of pluralistic “rights of error.”

When a supposed successor of Pius X solemnly raises a cathedral to basilica rank and does not even hint at the doctrinal war engulfing the Church, his silence testifies to complicity. This is not innocent omission; it is the methodical normalization of a new religion.

Theological Bankruptcy Behind Apparently Harmless Acts

From the perspective of unchanging pre-1958 doctrine, three key issues emerge.

1. Usurpation of Apostolic Authority: The Empty Formula of “Plenitude of Power”

The brief concludes with the classic solemn formula:

Haec edicimus, statuimus, decernentes praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare…

He invokes *plenitudo potestatis* (fullness of apostolic power) to bind the Church concerning a liturgical honor. But the same man, by convoking and directing a council that would unleash doctrinal confusion and revolution, objectively contradicts the deposit of faith.

According to the principles summarized by St. Robert Bellarmine and the classical theologians:

– Manifestus haereticus non potest esse Papa (a manifest heretic cannot be Pope), because he is not a member of the Church; he loses every jurisdiction by the very fact of public heresy.
– Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code declares that a cleric who publicly defects from the faith loses his office by tacit resignation, “by the law itself, without any declaration.”

When a figure who prepares the conciliar subversion (and is later exalted by the entire post-1958 paramasonic structure as the smiling patron of aggiornamento) uses the solemn legal style of the papacy, that style becomes an empty shell.

Thus even in this seemingly benign act, the invocation of apostolic authority is theologically bankrupt: a usurped seal used to stamp gestures that integrate real Catholic devotions into an emerging counterfeit system.

2. Instrumentalization of Marian Piety

The brief presents Valencia’s cathedral as “a principal seat of Marian piety” and as a “ray of light” for the whole diocese. This appears praiseworthy. However, we must ask: light towards what?

Prior to 1958, Marian devotion is inseparably linked with:
– uncompromising profession of the Catholic faith as the one ark of salvation;
– rejection of all errors listed in the *Syllabus*;
– insistence on penance, mortification, purity, and doctrinal clarity;
– total subordination to Christ’s kingship in temporal and spiritual order.

In the conciliar and post-conciliar optic prepared by men like John XXIII:
– Marian symbolism is emptied of militancy; the Virgin ceases to be the victorious Woman crushing all heresies (*cunctorum haereticorum sola interemtrix*) and is turned into a vague icon of maternal inclusion.
– Shrines, basilicas, and coronations become sentimental capital used to reassure the faithful while doctrine, liturgy, and ecclesial structures are gradually subverted.

The brief is emblematic: it decorates a Marian center without summoning it to be a bastion against Liberalism, Communism, and Modernism; without reminding that every grace of Our Lady leads to adoration of Christ as King and adherence to His integral doctrine. This is Marian devotion desacralized by omission.

3. Absence of the Church Militant: No Call to Combat the Enemies of God

Compare this brief with Pius IX’s constant denunciations of:
– masonic sects as the “synagogue of Satan,”
– liberal governments persecuting the Church,
– the false notion of separation of Church and State (condemned explicitly in proposition 55 of the *Syllabus*).

Or with Pius XI in *Quas primas*:
– demanding the public recognition of Christ by rulers,
– condemning secularism as an apostasy that destroys societies.

In 1960 Venezuela and the world were already riven by secularization, socialism, and masonic politics. A true Roman Pontiff, granting basilica status, would have:
– exhorted clergy and faithful to defend Catholic doctrine against liberal and socialist infiltrations;
– reminded civil authorities of their duty before Christ the King;
– insisted on doctrinal and liturgical orthodoxy as the condition for any honor.

Instead, the text is sterile: it speaks as if the Church existed in an historical vacuum, without enemies, without apostasy, without the Cross. This is pastoral naturalism: religion reduced to a pleasant, socially acceptable cult, stripped of its militant, exclusive, salvific character.

Qui tacet consentire videtur (he who is silent appears to consent). The silence before the advancing revolution is itself an indictment.

The Symptom of a System: Integration of Authentic Elements into the Conciliar Construct

This document must be read as part of the systemic transformation carried out by the conciliar sect:

– Authentic elements (Latin, Marian shrines, old churches, pre-existing devotions) are not immediately destroyed; they are embraced, named, and “honored.”
– By being honored under the signature of a usurper and within the emerging doctrinally-corrupted structure, they are silently re-contextualized.
– The faithful are thus conditioned to believe that nothing essential has changed: same buildings, same images, same words—while in reality, the doctrinal foundation is being evacuated.

This is precisely how a counterfeit is forged: not by rejecting every feature of the original, but by preserving enough external continuity to seduce those unwilling to see the rupture.

The brief Urbi Valentiae is a textbook example:
– It attaches a genuine Venezuelan Marian devotion, historically crowned under St. Pius X, to the authority-claim of John XXIII.
– It uses solemn papal formulas to normalize his role as lawgiver and shepherd.
– It does so discretely, with no explicit heresy—but with the deadly silence and displacement that characterize Modernist method.

St. Pius X in *Pascendi* unmasks this: the Modernist hides his subversion beneath traditional language, denying in practice what he does not yet deny in words. The absence of dogmatic clarity in a solemn act is not accidental; it is method.

The Naturalistic and Humanistic Drift Behind the Polite Latin

Note further:

– No mention that the basilica’s privileges exist for the more abundant offering of the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary* and the preaching of unadulterated doctrine.
– No reminder that indulgences and honors involve obligations: purity of faith, avoidance of profanation, resistance to error.

Instead, we are left with an implicit vision:
– sacred architecture as civic honor;
– Marian shrine as cultural-religious lighthouse for the “whole diocese” in sentimental terms;
– Rome as benevolent grantor of titles, not as the fortress of dogmatic and moral intransigence.

This mirrors the liberal idea condemned by the Popes: religion as an ornament of national life, subject to the categories of heritage, identity, and emotion, not as the objective, juridical reign of Christ over individuals and nations.

Pius XI explicitly taught in *Quas primas* that the denial of Christ’s social kingship is the root of modern miseries, and that public honors that do not submit to His law are empty. Here, a supposed pontiff heaps honors while systematically preparing a council that will substitute the integral doctrine of Christ’s kingship with “religious liberty,” “human dignity,” and “dialogue” — notions condemned in substance by Pius IX when absolutized against the rights of God.

Denunciation of the Conciliar Pattern: Honors as Sedatives

Thus, the theological and spiritual bankruptcy exposed here is threefold:

1. Bankruptcy of Authority:
– The act invokes real papal formulas while belonging to the line of men (beginning with John XXIII) who objectively overturn prior teaching in their subsequent magisterial claims.
– A power used to introduce or protect Modernism cannot be the authentic authority entrusted to Peter to confirm the brethren in the same faith.

2. Bankruptcy of Marian Devotion:
– The Mother of God is used as a decorative seal on a program that will:
– dilute the uniqueness of the Catholic Church,
– engage in false ecumenism,
– tolerate or promote religious liberty of error,
– transform the liturgy and sacraments into human-centered rites.
– True Marian piety, as known from Tradition, cannot be separated from crushing heresy and enthroning her Son as universal King; such separation betrays another spirit.

3. Bankruptcy of Pastoral Care:
– Instead of warning the faithful, the brief soothes them.
– Instead of arming them against the enemies denounced by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI, it distracts them with titles and ceremonies.
– Honors are used as sedatives, to keep Catholics asleep while wolves reshape the fold.

Return to the Pre-1958 Standard: The Only Remedy

Faced with such documents, the only Catholic response—grounded in the perennial Magisterium before 1958—is:

– to measure every act and word by the prior, irreformable teaching of the Church;
– to reject the illusion that continuity of language or ritual titles guarantees continuity of faith;
– to refuse the abuse of Marian and liturgical forms as a cover for betrayal;
– to hold fast to the dogmatic condemnations of Liberalism, Modernism, indifferentism, and the duty of states to honor Christ the King and His one true Church.

Anything less would be to participate in the deception whereby external piety is harnessed to fortify an apostate, conciliar edifice.

Where Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI speak clearly, the Catholic must stand.
Where a usurping regime uses their vocabulary while overturning their doctrine, the Catholic must unmask the counterfeit.

In this light, Urbi Valentiae is not an innocuous curial ornament but a small, telling brick in the construction of the neo-church: a structure that decorates Marian sanctuaries while preparing to enthrone man in the place of God.

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Source:
Urbi Valentiae, Litterae Apostolicae Basilicae Minoris titulo exornatur cathedralis ecclesia Valentina in Venezuela, d. 12 m. Februarii a. 1960, Ioannes PP. XXIII   (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025