Caritatis Praeconium (1959.05.03)
The apostolic letter Caritatis Praeconium, issued by John XXIII on 3 May 1959, announces the beatification of Marie-Marguerite d’Youville, foundress of the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, extolling her as a model of charity, universal benevolence, and heroic virtue. The text recounts her life: noble birth, early sufferings, widowhood, works for the poor and sick, foundation of the “Grey Nuns,” management of the Montreal hospital, and her religious virtues; it then concludes with the formal concession of liturgical cult to her person within specified dioceses and houses. The entire document presents this beatification as a pure triumph of evangelical charity and a glory for the Church in Canada. In reality, it is one of the inaugural acts of John XXIII’s programmatic subversion: the instrumentalization of “charity” to inaugurate a new cult of horizontal humanitarianism detached from integral Catholic faith and to shift the axis of sanctity from the reign of Christ the King and doctrinal militancy to naturalistic social service, thereby manifesting the embryonic theological bankruptcy of the conciliar revolution.










