Dated 14 June 1959, this brief Latin letter of John XXIII to Aloysius Stepinac marks the 25th anniversary of Stepinac’s episcopal consecration. John XXIII congratulates him for his supposed piety, firmness, charity towards the persecuted, defense of Catholic doctrine, and patience in suffering, praises Pius XII’s creation of him as cardinal, spiritualizes his isolation and trials, and imparts his “apostolic blessing” to Stepinac, his auxiliaries, clergy, and faithful of Zagreb. In doing so, the text canonizes not sanctity, but an already advanced state of ecclesial disorientation, using Stepinac’s real sufferings as a backdrop for the rising cult of the conciliar revolution’s founding figure.
Beatification of the Conciliar Project under the Guise of Consoling a Confessor
Apparent Defense of a Persecuted Bishop as Strategic Self-Legitimation
On the factual level, the letter appears simple:
– John XXIII recalls Stepinac’s episcopal anniversary.
– He extols Stepinac’s “piety,” “Catholic sense,” “firm constancy,” and pastoral initiatives:
– Increase of parishes.
– Promotion of Catholic Action.
– Care for the poor and persecuted.
– Defense of Catholic doctrine.
– He alludes to Stepinac’s forced removal from active ministry and isolation under the communist regime:
– “Aerumnosa ob rerum adiuncta, pro dolor, relinquere coactus es operum tuorum ferventia studia… et in solitudine versari.”
– He offers moral consolation:
– “Nam melius est subire quam inferre iniustitias.” (“It is better to undergo injustices than to inflict them.”)
– He recalls Pius XII elevating Stepinac to the cardinalate.
– He cloaks Stepinac’s suffering in the language of participation in the Cross and imparts an “apostolic blessing.”
All these elements, taken materially, could be placed within Catholic tradition: honoring a bishop persecuted by communism, linking his trial to the Cross, and commending him to God’s providence.
However, the text must be read in 1959: the same John XXIII, already preparing the “Second Vatican Council,” initiating rapprochement with communist regimes and non-Catholic religions, here uses Stepinac’s genuine martyrial situation as a moral alibi to project an image of “continuity” with Pius XII and pre-1958 doctrine while silently inverting its substance. This letter is a subtle piece of symbolic capital: it drapes the architect of the coming conciliar catastrophe in the mantle of an anti-communist confessor—while already undermining the integral doctrinal positions for which pre-conciliar popes condemned precisely the errors John XXIII would foster.
Linguistic Softness: Pious Varnish for an Emerging Betrayal
The vocabulary is deliberately warm, devout, and restrained:
– Repeated affectionate formulas: “Dilecte Fili Noster”, expressions of esteem, gentle moral exhortations.
– No concrete denunciation of communism, atheistic tyranny, or its intrinsically anti-Christian character.
– No explicit invocation of the duty of Catholic states or rulers; no connection with the integral condemnation of socialism, communism, and Freemasonry as reaffirmed by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– The persecution is described as “aerumnosa ob rerum adiuncta” (“distressing circumstances”), a bureaucratic euphemism, not a precise naming of an anti-Christian system condemned repeatedly by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
This soft-focus language is not accidental; it is symptomatic. While earlier pontiffs speak with crystalline clarity of the *sectae nefariae* (nefarious sects), the “synagogue of Satan,” and the intrinsic perversity of socialist and masonic conspiracies (cf. the Syllabus of Errors; pre-1958 condemnations of Freemasonry and laicism), John XXIII here anesthetizes the conflict into a vague tragedy of “circumstances.” The persecuting communist power is grammatically absent; injustice appears as an almost impersonal fate. This rhetorical anesthesia prepares precisely the conciliar “dialogue” with regimes and false religions.
The affectionate tone toward Stepinac functions as a sentimental veil over a conceptual void: no doctrinal precision, no militant affirmation of the social Kingship of Christ, no reiteration that states which reject Christ and oppress His Church are in objective rebellion against divine law. In other words: consoling words without the sword of truth. This is already the style of the *conciliar sect*: mellifluous, affective, evasive, allergic to clear condemnations.
Doctrinal Minimalism and the Eclipse of the Kingship of Christ
Measured against pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, the omissions of this letter are more incriminating than its compliments.
1. Stepinac suffered under an avowedly atheistic, communist regime.
– Pre-1958 magisterial doctrine (e.g., Pius XI in *Quas Primas*) insists that peace and justice are impossible where the public reign of Christ is denied; Pius IX’s Syllabus condemns the separation of Church and State (prop. 55) and the supposed neutrality of public authority.
– A letter to a bishop persecuted exactly because of fidelity to that integral vision should:
– Explicitly affirm the rights of Christ the King over Croatia and all nations.
– Condemn the errors that produced the persecution: communism, masonic laicism, religious indifferentism.
– Strengthen the faithful in resistance to doctrines condemned by the Syllabus and *Lamentabili*.
Instead, John XXIII offers purely generic spiritual encouragement and a vague providentialism:
– “Deum, qui mala sinit esse, ut inde maiora bona exsistant” (“God, who allows evils so that greater goods may arise”)
while never specifying the nature of those “evils.” This pious abstraction is perfectly compatible with the coming conciliar betrayal, in which the “new” hierarchy would no longer require states to recognize the Catholic faith as the true religion, but would exalt “religious liberty” and “pluralism” as positive goods. The silence here betrays alignment with that future revolution.
2. No mention of:
– The obligation of rulers to protect the Church.
– The intrinsic iniquity of ideologies negating God and Revelation.
– The supernatural stakes: salvation, damnation, necessity of remaining in the true Church etc.
Such silence about *the* essential questions—*regnum Christi*, grace, the Four Last Things—is not a minor stylistic lapse; it is the sign that the author is already thinking within a naturalistic, diplomatic paradigm. The “Church” is emotionally supported, but no longer proclaims intransigently her exclusive divine rights. The persecuted confessor is praised as a moral symbol, while the doctrines he was expected to defend are discreetly bracketed.
Instrumentalization of a Confessor to Legitimize a Counterfeit Authority
On the theological level, this letter is further poisoned by its implicit claim: John XXIII writes as if he were the Roman Pontiff imparting an “Apostolic Blessing.” From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine:
– A manifest modernist heretic cannot be head of the Church.
– As synthesized by St. Robert Bellarmine and classical canonists (cf. Defense of Sedevacantism file):
– “A manifest heretic is not a member of the Church, therefore he cannot be head of the Church.”
– Canon 188.4 (1917 Code) teaches that public defection from the faith vacates ecclesiastical office *ipso facto*.
– John XXIII, the inaugurator of the conciliar revolution, convoker of a council that would enshrine “religious liberty,” “ecumenism,” and the cult of man—all condemned beforehand by the authentic Magisterium—is situated squarely in this theological framework of defection and disqualification.
Thus, his “benediction” is not the paternal act of the Vicar of Christ, but the patronizing gesture of one already aligning with condemned principles, leveraging a true confessor’s prestige to clothe a nascent anti-church with borrowed credibility.
This is precisely the mechanism:
– Wrap oneself in the honor of genuine pre-1958 heroes.
– Use their symbolic capital to persuade the faithful that the coming novelties stand in continuity with the faith for which those heroes suffered.
– All the while avoiding any explicit reaffirmation of the condemned doctrines that would contradict the future Vatican II program.
The letter’s praise of Pius XII’s creation of Stepinac as cardinal is another attempt at this fictitious continuity: *see, I honor what my predecessor did; therefore, my course is the same.* In reality, the subsequent program of John XXIII and his successors will diametrically contradict the anti-modernist, anti-liberal principles of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
The Symptom: From Confessors of the Faith to Mascots of Dialogue
This document functions symptomatically in four ways:
1. Reduction of persecution to a romanticized narrative without doctrinal content
Stepinac’s trial and isolation arose from his fidelity to the Church’s supernatural claims and to the rights of Christ and His Church over society. John XXIII strips this down to:
– Personal fidelity.
– Suffering injustice patiently.
– Generic acts of charity and Catholic Action.
The cause—Catholic dogma about Church and State, the exclusive truth of the Church—is silenced. What remains is an edifying moral tale compatible with a “pluralist,” post-conciliar worldview that will later renounce the political reign of Christ.
2. Substitution of supernatural militancy with therapeutic consolation
Pre-1958 popes:
– Condemn error.
– Instruct the faithful in precise doctrinal terms.
– Demand repentance and submission to revealed truth.
Here:
– No call to Croatian faithful to remain doctrinally vigilant.
– No warning against compromises with communism, liberalism, or schismatic nationalism.
– No mention that salvation is only in the Catholic Church, contra Syllabus prop. 16–18.
Instead, the faithful receive an anodyne encouragement framed by a usurped authority that will soon officially dismantle the barriers against indifferentism.
3. Preparation of Ostpolitik and false “peace”
The refusal even to name communism is an early signal of the infamous Ostpolitik: the “Church of the New Advent” enters into dialogue with anti-Christian regimes, abandoning explicit condemnations in favor of coexistence. The letter’s abstraction—“distressing circumstances,” “injustices”—fits perfectly into that diplomatic line: the persecutor evaporates into the background; all sharp dogmatic edges are filed away.
4. Transformation of confessors into ornaments of a new ideology
Stepinac, who in reality stands as a symbol of resistance to atheistic tyranny, is rhetorically integrated into the narrative of the same anti-church that will:
– Glorify human rights severed from Christ the King.
– Promote “religious freedom” condemned by Pius IX.
– Elevate “dialogue” over conversion.
– Treat communists and Freemasons as partners rather than enemies of Christ.
His memory becomes a decorative mosaic tile in the new cathedral of conciliar humanism, rather than a burning reproach against it.
Silence on the Exclusive Salvific Mission of the Church
One must particularly note that this letter, though addressed to a bishop whose people suffered under a regime hostile to the faith, omits every explicit affirmation of:
– The necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation.
– The obligation of public, social recognition of the true Religion.
– The objective mortal sin of supporting atheistic or anti-Catholic regimes.
Pius XI, in *Quas Primas*, teaches unequivocally that:
– Peace and order can only arise where Christ’s sovereignty is recognized publicly.
– States that exclude Christ undermine their own legitimacy.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus, condemns as errors:
– That all religions are equal paths to God.
– That the Church can be set on the same footing as false religions.
– That the State should be separated from the Church.
By contrast, John XXIII’s letter:
– Neither reaffirms these teachings.
– Nor draws the obvious conclusion that the communist authorities are in objective rebellion against divine law.
This carefully curated silence is a betrayal. *Quod tacite approbatur consentire videtur* (what is silently left unchallenged is in some way consented to). The omission prefigures the conciliar capitulation: the doctrine remains on paper while the living voice of what claims to be the Magisterium ceases to proclaim it.
From Anti-Modernist Oaths to the Cult of Ambiguity
The anti-modernist teaching of St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane* and *Pascendi* identifies as characteristic of Modernism:
– The refusal to accept fixed, unchanging dogma.
– The subordination of doctrine to historical circumstances and pastoral strategies.
– The use of ambiguous language to relocate faith from objective revelation to subjective “experience.”
Though this short letter does not, in itself, expound doctrinal novelties, it exemplifies the modernist method:
– Dogmatic content is reduced to vague spirituality.
– Historical and political reality is euphemized.
– Genuine supernatural claims about Christ’s rights in society are replaced by safe, interiorized consolation.
This “style” is the solvent. It habituates the faithful to a speech that no longer condemns, defines, or commands in the name of Christ the King. Once that habit is formed, the door is open to codify the revolution in conciliar and post-conciliar texts: “religious liberty,” “ecumenism,” “collegiality,” and the rest of the anti-doctrinal apparatus.
Contradiction with Pre-1958 Ecclesiology and Authority
The letter presupposes John XXIII as legitimate pope and projects full continuity with his predecessor:
– He speaks as if exercising true Apostolic authority.
– He references Pius XII’s action as seamlessly his own patrimony.
Yet:
– The same John XXIII will convoke an assembly and launch a program that:
– Dilutes the Church’s claim to exclusive truth.
– Contradicts the Syllabus’s condemnation of liberalism (prop. 77–80).
– Undermines the anti-modernist stance of *Lamentabili*.
According to classical theology summarized in the Defense of Sedevacantism:
– A prelate who openly promotes condemned errors or structurally dismantles the safeguards of faith is not a trustworthy guardian of Tradition but falls under the category of manifest heretic.
– Such a one cannot validly hold the supreme office or transmit authentic jurisdiction, since “he cannot be the head of that of which he is no longer a member.”
Consequently, the letter’s entire authority-structure is inverted: a confessor of the pre-conciliar faith is being “confirmed” by a man whose subsequent program reveals an orientation incompatible with that very faith. What should have happened, in the order of Catholic truth, is the reverse: Stepinac’s fidelity should judge John XXIII’s ambiguities, not John XXIII’s benediction clothing Stepinac with conciliar gloss.
Exposure of the Spiritual Bankruptcy Encapsulated in the Text
Thus, in the light of unchanging Catholic doctrine before 1958, this seemingly pious letter reveals:
– Bankruptcy of speech: a refusal to name and condemn the concrete enemies of Christ and His Church, in contrast to the forthright clarity of prior popes.
– Bankruptcy of doctrine-in-act: no assertion of the exclusive rights of Christ the King and the true Church, precisely where those rights are historically at stake.
– Bankruptcy of ecclesial integrity: the usurping of Petrine language by one who will oversee the practical suspension of the Syllabus, *Quas Primas*, and the anti-modernist protections.
– Bankruptcy of supernatural focus: consolations are offered, but there is no vigorous call to perseverance in integral doctrine, no articulation of the supernatural horizon of judgment and eternal destiny as the primary lens for persecution.
The letter is emblematic of the transition from the age of confessors of the Faith to the age of curators of image. A real sufferer is affirmed, not to intensify the proclamation of Christ’s sovereign rights, but to lend moral prestige to the very project that will deny them in practice. Under the careful, syrupy Latin lies the serpentine logic of conciliarism: soften language, blur enemies, praise individuals, evacuate doctrines, and prepare the faithful to accept a “church” reconciled with the world it once condemned.
Against this, the perennial Magisterium stands as a tribunal. Measured by Pius IX’s Syllabus, St. Pius X’s anti-modernist decrees, and Pius XI’s doctrine of Christ the King, this text is not an act of Petrine confirmation, but a symptom of the ascendant *ecclesia adulterata*—the adulterated structure that, occupying the Vatican, dares to bless the confessors of yesterday while constructing the spiritual desert in which their witness is neutralized.
Source:
– Ad Aloisium S. R. E. Card. Stepinac, Archiepiscopum Zagrabiensem, quintum et vicesimum annum a suscepto Episcopatu implentem (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025