The homily delivered by Angelo Roncalli at his coronation on 4 November 1958 presents his self-understanding as “John XXIII” at the outset of his rule: he addresses the hierarchy and the world, evokes Peter and John, sketches expectations people allegedly have of a “pope,” rejects some of these expectations in favour of the image of the “Good Shepherd,” strongly identifies the Roman Pontiff as the unique door of the sheepfold and Vicar of Christ, insists on evangelical meekness and humility as the governing program, and concludes by binding his pontifical identity to St Charles Borromeo as model of pastoral reform. Behind a pious biblical veneer, this discourse inaugurates the programmatic sentimentalism, anthropocentrism, and deliberate doctrinal deflection that will open the way to the conciliar revolution.
Coronation Without Christ the King: Roncalli’s Pastoral Mask of a Coming Revolution
Misappropriation of Petrine Imagery to Legitimize an Illegitimate Rule
Already in the opening paragraphs, Roncalli manifests a characteristic tactic: surrounding a radical reorientation with an overabundance of biblical and patristic language to anesthetize theological vigilance.
He situates himself before the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles and says, in essence: I, as Peter’s successor, receive his supreme office and hear Peter’s voice across the ages, and I willingly take to myself the “sweet and honorable” name of John. He then immediately frames his “pontificate” in terms of expectations of the modern world: diplomacy, management of public affairs, openness to “all the advances of the age.”
To his credit, he momentarily resists a purely political or technocratic image of the papacy. But what appears as fidelity is in fact a calculated redirection:
– He invokes Joseph’s words to his brothers:
“I am Joseph your brother.”
to propose the “new Pontiff” as a brother consoling his afflicted siblings. This displaces the traditional, juridical, monarchical self-consciousness of the Roman Pontiff in favour of an emotive fraternalism. The Vicar of Christ is not simply “brother”; he is *Caput et Magister* (head and teacher), supreme legislator and judge in matters of faith and morals (Vatican I, *Pastor aeternus*). This is not a matter of tone only; it is a change of theological optic.
– He applies to himself with insistence the image of the *Bonus Pastor*. One passage is central:
“Hoc in Iesu Christi ovile, nonnisi Summo Pontifice ductore, quisquam ingredi potest; et homines tum solummodo, cum ei coniunguntur, tuto possunt salvi fieri, quandoquidem Romanus Pontifex Vicarius est Christi, eiusque in terris personam gerit.”
“Into this sheepfold of Jesus Christ, no one can enter except under the guidance of the Supreme Pontiff; and only when men are united with him can they be safely saved, since the Roman Pontiff is the Vicar of Christ and bears His person on earth.”
Taken in isolation and according to perennial doctrine, the affirmation that salvation is secure only in union with the true Roman Pontiff expresses the Catholic truth: *ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia* (where Peter is, there is the Church). Pius IX and Leo XIII insist on this inseparability of salvation, Church, and Papacy (cf. Pius IX, *Quanto conficiamur moerore*; Leo XIII, *Satis cognitum*).
But in the mouth of Roncalli, this line becomes a weaponized equivocation:
– The usurper proclaims: union with “the pope” is necessary for salvation.
– He then uses his own person and future program as the referent of “Pope.”
– Thus the faithful are catechized into identifying fidelity to Christ and His immutable doctrine with obedience to a man who will, in short order, convene the engine of doctrinal subversion.
This is the classic modernist maneuver condemned by St Pius X in *Pascendi* and in the attached syllabus *Lamentabili sane exitu*: cloak a new religion in the vocabulary of the old while inverting its substance. The authority formula is orthodox; the content to be imposed by that authority is revolutionary. This homily is therefore not a merely pious discourse but a foundational misappropriation of Petrine theology to secure submission to a future anti-doctrinal agenda.
Selective Silence: No Warning Against Error, No Call to Doctrinal Combat
Measured against the integral Catholic magisterium prior to 1958, the most damning element of this coronation homily is its silence.
From Pius IX through Pius XII, every major pontifical teaching at moments of crisis identifies, with surgical clarity:
– the poison of liberalism and naturalism (Pius IX, *Syllabus Errorum*);
– the sects and masonic forces infiltrating states and persecuting the Church;
– the intrinsic falsity of religious indifferentism and false “freedom of conscience”;
– the necessity of the social kingship of Christ and the subordination of states to His law (Leo XIII, *Immortale Dei*; Pius XI, *Quas primas*);
– the deadly nature of Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies” (St Pius X, *Pascendi*, *Lamentabili*).
In this homily, pronounced at the threshold of authority in an age already devastated by:
– communist persecution;
– masonic and secularist domination;
– the spread of biblical criticism and dogmatic relativism;
– moral putrefaction of peoples and elites,
Roncalli says nothing about:
– the abyss between the laws of God and the laws of apostate states;
– the obligation of nations to submit publicly to the reign of Christ the King, as taught with solemn urgency by Pius XI in *Quas primas*;
– the plague of indifferentism, condemned proposition by proposition in the *Syllabus*;
– Modernism, explicitly anathematized by St Pius X and yet rampantly nesting in seminaries and theological faculties.
Instead, he indulges in gentle impressions about “many voices” reaching him, some wanting a diplomatic “pope,” others a learned “pope,” etc., only to conclude that the essence of the Roman Pontiff is to be a “Good Shepherd,” meek and humble. The omission is systematic. There is no mention of:
– sin;
– the need for penance;
– the danger of hell;
– the gravity of heresy;
– the duty to defend the flock against wolves by condemning errors and excommunicating obstinate heretics.
Silence here is not accidental; it is programmatic. When Pius XI teaches that peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ and that laicism is a plague destroying nations (Quas primas), to omit such themes at the solemn commencement of a supposed pontificate is already to betray a naturalistic, conciliatory vision. This is the soft launch of the “Church of dialogue,” where supernatural combat yields to sentimental humanistic pastoralism.
From Petrine Monarchy to Emotional Pastoralism: Linguistic Symptoms of a New Religion
On the linguistic level, the homily’s rhetorical pattern is revealing:
– Constant appeal to affective categories: “how sweet,” “how consoling,” “paternal and most loving greeting,” personal memories, “suavissima recordatio.”
– Repetitive emphasis on “lenitudo et humilitas” (*meekness and humility*) as the “great law” that should shape the papal exercise of office:
“Magna igitur lex est lenitudo et humilitas.”
– The faithful are urged above all to pray that the “pontiff” may progress ever more in evangelical gentleness and humility so that from such a cultivated virtue “many benefits” will arise, “even in the order of human relations, social and earthly matters.”
Here the displacement is subtle but lethal:
– Meekness and humility are indeed evangelical virtues; Our Lord commands: Discite a me, quia mitis sum et humilis corde (“Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart,” Mt 11:29).
– But pre-conciliar magisterium repeatedly insists that the Petrine office entails not merely gentleness but firmness, severity against error, exercise of jurisdiction, use of coercive power when required for the salvation of souls (cf. Pius IX’s condemnation of liberal errors; Leo XIII on the duty of rulers to repress publicly manifest impiety; the explicit rejection, in the *Syllabus*, of the proposition that the Church must not use force or that she has no temporal authority).
Roncalli’s presentation isolates two virtues and tacitly elevates them as the hermeneutical key to all papal action, including toward enemies of the faith. The omission of justice, fortitude, and zeal for doctrinal purity is not innocent. It prepares the mental framework in which:
– anathemas become “pastoral” silences;
– public condemnations of error are replaced by “dialogue”;
– the Church’s right to demand civil recognition of the true religion is replaced by “religious freedom”;
– the very content of dogma is practically relativized under a rhetoric of “charity” and “humility.”
This is precisely the modernist inversion condemned by St Pius X: doctrine is softened, relativized, submerged beneath experience and sentiment; the language of charity is wielded against the exercise of authority; humility is misused to imply that the Church must no longer speak and act with divine certainty against the world.
Note how Roncalli connects meekness with human, social, temporal “advantages”. He suggests that if only the “Father of all the faithful” is consistently meek and humble, immense benefits will arise “even” in the temporal order. Grace is implicitly harnessed to worldly concord; supernatural militancy is replaced by horizontal harmony. This is not the robust *Regnum Christi* of *Quas primas*; it is the embryo of that naturalistic humanitarianism which later will manifest as the “cult of man” and the abolition of confessional states.
Abuse of the “Good Shepherd” Image Against the Duty to Condemn Error
The homily’s central biblical figure is the *Bonus Pastor* (John 10). Roncalli underlines:
– the shepherd going before the sheep;
– his readiness to give his life;
– his love and gentleness.
All true. Yet one crucial element of the Johannine text and of Catholic pastoral theology is practically erased: the *wolf*.
Our Lord warns of “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” of hirelings who flee, of the need to distinguish His voice from that of strangers. The pre-1958 Popes apply this with full seriousness to:
– heretics who corrupt doctrine;
– secret societies undermining the Church;
– false philosophies invading Catholic thought.
Pius IX attributes the onslaught against Church and society largely to masonic sects; St Pius X unmasks Modernists as the most dangerous enemies because they dwell within. Both act not only as gentle shepherds but as judges, legislators, condemnators, wielding the divinely given rod.
Roncalli’s discourse is conspicuous for:
– absence of any concrete identification of “wolves”;
– absence of denunciation of specific contemporary doctrinal, moral, or political perils;
– absence of references to that modernist “synthesis of all heresies” anathematized only decades earlier.
Instead, he conflates in an edifying blur the Good Shepherd’s image with his own person, and then presents his “pontificate” as primarily characterized by affective pastoral caretaking, rather than by doctrinal guardianship.
Given the historical context—when error already saturated seminaries, universities, episcopates—this refusal to speak the word *anathema* at the coronation is not mercy; it is abdication. The Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep by confronting wolves. The “pastoral” mask that refuses this combat is not that of Christ but of the hireling.
The Programmatic Exploitation of St Charles Borromeo
Roncalli ends by emphasizing that his coronation coincides with the feast of St Charles Borromeo. He recalls that:
– Borromeo implemented the decrees of Trent;
– he restored clerical discipline;
– he is rightly called “Magister Episcoporum” and a model of episcopal holiness.
He then inserts into the litany of saints during his coronation the invocation:
“Sancte Carole, tu illum adiuva.”
“Saint Charles, help him.”
At first glance, this appears as an act of continuity: the new “pontiff” claiming as patron the great post-Tridentine reformer. In reality it is an audacious rhetorical usurpation.
St Charles Borromeo stands for:
– rigorous implementation of dogmatic decrees;
– moral and doctrinal reform by enforcing discipline, visiting dioceses, correcting abuses;
– zealous defense of orthodoxy against Protestantism;
– concrete resistance to secular powers encroaching on ecclesiastical rights.
To invoke Borromeo while preparing to inaugurate a council that will:
– dilute Tridentine clarity on the Mass, the Church, religious liberty;
– open doors to the very errors Trent, Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St Pius X had crushed;
– replace strict discipline with indulgent laxity;
– celebrate “dialogue” with those in error rather than their conversion to the one true Church,
is a profound irony bordering on blasphemous manipulation of the Saints.
From the standpoint of unchanging Catholic theology:
– Trent’s decrees are binding and irreformable in their defined sense; they anathematize precisely those tendencies that will later appear under Roncalli’s successors as liturgical revolution, ecumenism, collegiality, and religious liberty.
– St Pius X renewed and confirmed Trent’s line by anathematizing Modernism, making its condemnation a touchstone of orthodoxy (*Lamentabili*, *Pascendi*, the anti-modernist oath).
To adorn the nascent conciliar project with the figure of Borromeo is to coat rupture with a stolen patina of reform. It is the method: maintain an external iconography of Tradition while hollowing out its doctrinal content.
Doctrinal Evasion and Preparation for the Conciliar Revolution
Consider what this homily does not proclaim, in contrast with the pre-1958 Magisterium:
1. No assertion that the Catholic religion is the only true religion and that all others are false, despite Pius IX having explicitly condemned the contrary propositions (Syllabus, 15–18, 21).
2. No affirmation of the right and duty of Catholic states to recognize the true Church and to repress public violations of divine law, contrary to the constant teaching of Leo XIII and Pius XI and the condemnation of separation of Church and State (Syllabus, 55).
3. No mention of the inerrancy of Scripture and the binding dogmatic condemnations of rationalism and historicism, despite the ongoing diffusion of precisely those errors condemned in *Lamentabili sane exitu*.
4. No warning that violation of moral law in public and private life calls down divine wrath; no echo of the supernatural gravity with which Pius XI and Pius XII speak of contraception, impurity, or family disintegration.
5. No explicit call to combat socialism, communism, and secret societies, even though Pius IX and Leo XIII identified them as principal engines of the “war on the Church of Christ,” and Pius XII continued this line.
Instead:
– Roncalli’s central “program” is the cultivation of meekness and humility in the person of the “pontiff” and the hope of benefits “even” in social relations.
– The papacy is rhetorically re-centered on pastoral affectivity, availability, and fraternal closeness.
– The office is detached from its primary function as supreme guardian and enforcer of dogma and discipline.
This is precisely the mental revolution requisite for the later betrayal: once the faithful have been habituated to think of “Peter” chiefly as a humble, gentle brother-shepherd who does not condemn but understands, they will be more easily dragged into acceptance of doctrinal innovations so long as they are presented in the same honeyed, pastoral tone.
Conciliar Sect Genesis: From Theological Certainty to Pastoral Ambiguity
Examined symptomatically, this homily exhibits core features of the coming conciliar sect:
– An insistence on pastoral categories over dogmatic precision.
– A refusal to name, condemn, and expel concrete heresies.
– A sentimental Christology: Christ primarily as gentle shepherd, scarcely as sovereign King and judge.
– A naturalistic expectation that gentle papal demeanor will itself produce social peace.
All this stands in tension with, or even contradiction to, the integral pre-1958 doctrine:
– Pius XI in *Quas primas* teaches that the root of modern calamities is precisely the refusal of individuals and states to recognize and submit to the kingship of Christ. Peace, order, and justice depend on His public reign. Roncalli’s coronation homily, instead of proclaiming Christ the King over nations, proposes his own meekness as source of temporal benefits.
– Pius IX’s *Syllabus* condemns the notion that the Church should reconcile herself with “progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” understood as emancipation from Christ’s authority (error 80). Roncalli’s entire public profile, already visible here, inclines towards an openness to “the advances of the age,” filtered not by doctrinal anathema but by a vague pastoral discernment.
– St Pius X insists that the Magisterium can and must define the sense of Scripture and impose internal assent, condemning the idea that the faithful are free to ignore the judgments of the Holy See. The homily, while nominally affirming papal authority, empties it into affective leadership, preparing the later inversion where “pastoral” documents will de facto relativize dogmatic content.
The theological bankruptcy lies not in one explicit heretical thesis in this text, but in its systemic refusal to exercise and confess the Papacy as defined by Vatican I and consistently lived up to Pius XII. It is the inaugural performance of a new role: “Pope” as benevolent moderator of humanity’s journey, not as militant defender of immutable truth.
God’s Law Above Human Sentiment: Contrast with Pre-Conciliar Magisterium
From the perspective of the unchanging doctrine:
– Divine law, natural and revealed, is the supreme norm binding individuals and societies.
– The Roman Pontiff is the infallible teacher (under defined conditions) and supreme judge in matters of faith and morals, obliged to condemn error and protect the flock.
Pius XI states in *Quas primas* (paraphrased): peace among men and nations will not come until they accept the reign of Christ; laicism is the plague devouring society; the rights of Christ the King must be publicly confessed. Pius IX’s *Syllabus* brands as errors the exaltation of human reason as sole arbiter, the equality of all religions, and the neutrality of the state.
Roncalli, at the pivotal moment when he should either reaffirm or betray this line, opts for a language entirely compatible with:
– the cult of “human dignity” without explicit subordination to Christ’s kingship;
– future “dialogue” with the world;
– a pastoral ethos that will be easily harmonized with religious liberty and ecumenism.
His homily contains no call for rulers to publicly worship Christ or to submit laws to the Decalogue and the rights of the Church. It contains no reminder that states persecuting or ignoring the true religion incur divine judgment. Instead, benefits to “human relations” are expected from the pontiff’s meekness.
This is a practical relativization of *lex divina* beneath the psychological disposition of the office-holder. It inverts the hierarchy: rather than the “pope” imposing God’s unchanging law on men and nations, his humanitarian meekness becomes the operative principle for engaging a “modern world.” Here is the conceptual seed of the later betrayals in which “human rights,” “religious freedom,” and “dialogue” are enthroned above the rights of Christ the King.
Conclusion: A Coronation Homily as Charter of the Neo-Church
Judged by the sole legitimate standard—integral Catholic doctrine before 1958—this coronation homily is not a harmless devotional speech but the first public manifesto of a new orientation:
– It exploits orthodox formulas on the papal office while silently detaching that office from its primary obligations: to confess Christ’s kingship, condemn errors, and defend the flock against interior and exterior wolves.
– It absolutizes evangelical meekness and humility as if they exhausted the papal program, thereby marginalizing the necessity of doctrinal intransigence, juridical firmness, and holy severity.
– It instrumentalizes St Charles Borromeo’s image to lend borrowed credibility to what will soon prove diametrically opposed to the Tridentine and anti-modernist program he embodied.
– It seduces the faithful into equating loyalty to Christ and His Church with loyalty to a man who is carefully preparing the stage for the conciliar sect: a “pastoral” religion of dialogue, accommodation, and doctrinal liquefaction.
Where the authentic magisterium speaks with crystalline clarity against naturalism, liberalism, and Modernism, this homily speaks in emotive abstractions and calculated omissions. Where Pius IX, St Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII thundered that Christ must reign and that errors must be condemned, Roncalli smiles as “brother Joseph” and assures the world of his gentleness.
Such is the theological and spiritual bankruptcy already visible at the threshold: a counterfeit pastoral rhetoric deployed precisely to disarm resistance to the coming revolution. The true sheepfold of Christ, as taught consistently before 1958, is not gathered by such ambiguity, but by pastors who imitate the real Good Shepherd—meek toward penitents, yes, but relentless against wolves, unwavering in proclaiming the absolute rights of God and the exclusive truth of the Catholic Church.
Source:
die 4 m. Novembris A. D. MCMLVIII: In die Coronationis habita (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025