This Latin letter of John XXIII to Aloysius Stepinac, on the 25th anniversary of his episcopal consecration, is a brief congratulatory message praising Stepinac’s constancy, piety, pastoral zeal, and sufferings under communist persecution, recalling his appointment and elevation to the cardinalate by Pius XII, and imparting a so‑called “Apostolic Blessing” upon him and the clergy and faithful of Zagreb. The entire text, however, by coming from the first public acts of the conciliar usurper and by its studied silences, functions as a pious veil over the already ongoing revolution that would soon betray precisely the Kingship of Christ and the rights of the Church for which Stepinac had suffered.
Laudatio Without Conversion: Commending a Confessor While Preparing Betrayal
Praise of Stepinac Instrumentalized by a Usurper
John XXIII’s letter appears, on the surface, to be an orthodox homage to a Catholic confessor of the faith. In reality, it is the voice of the man who initiated the conciliar revolution attempting to clothe himself with the moral capital of a true witness raised under Pius XI and Pius XII.
Key elements of the text (English first, then Latin):
“Departing for you, beloved Son of Ours, the twenty-fifth year since you yourself were consecrated Bishop, Our thought flies to you with quicker and more attentive zeal than usual… We very gladly do this, since We highly esteem the praises of your soul, your piety toward God, your vigilant Catholic conscience, the firm constancy of an unconquered heart.”
“Abeunte tibi, dilecte Fili Noster, quinto et vicesimo anno, ex quo ipse consecratus es Episcopus, promptiore et attentiore quam solet studio ad te cogitatio Nostra convolat… Id autem quam libentissime facimus, cum magni aestimemus tui animi laudes, in Deum pietatem, vigilis catholici sensus conscientiam, invicti pectoris firmam constantiam.”
Factually:
– Stepinac had indeed been persecuted by the communist regime.
– Pius XII created him a cardinal as a sign of honor for his fidelity.
– John XXIII recites these points.
Yet it is precisely here that the abyss opens.
The same usurper who:
– convened Vatican II to dilute the doctrine solemnly defended in the Syllabus of Errors and Quas Primas,
– opened the way to religious liberty against the repeated pre‑1958 magisterial condemnations (Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII),
– inaugurated the conciliatory posture toward atheistic regimes that Stepinac had resisted,
now adorns himself with the mantle of defender of a “vexed and persecuted” shepherd while preparing to enthrone a new religion of dialogue.
From a pre‑1958 Catholic standpoint, this is not a neutral circumstance; it is a moral contradiction. Lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief): when the integrity of doctrine is being programmatically subverted, every seemingly pious gesture must be scrutinized as to its doctrinal function. Here the function is simple: co-opt the symbol of resistance in order to anesthetize resistance to the revolution about to be unleashed.
The Strategic Silence on the Kingship of Christ and the True Enemy
Most striking in this letter is not what is said, but what is omitted.
We are faced with:
– A bishop persecuted by a militant communist regime.
– An explicit reference to injustices suffered.
– Words about bearing the Cross and enduring wrongs rather than inflicting them.
Yet there is:
– No explicit confession of the social Kingship of Christ, solemnly taught by Pius XI in Quas Primas, as the non-negotiable antithesis to atheistic communism.
– No reaffirmation that any state that persecutes the Church usurps God’s rights and wages war on Christ Himself.
– No condemnation of the communist regime by name as an intrinsically anti-Christian power.
– No reminder that the state has the duty to recognize the true religion and submit to Christ’s reign, as Pius IX had insisted against liberal and Masonic errors in the Syllabus.
Instead, we read:
“God, who allows evils to be, that from them greater goods may arise… may gladden with the hope and fruit of a most flourishing harvest that which, being a sharer in the Cross of Christ, you sow there.”
This is true as far as it goes—God indeed brings good out of evil. But the rhetoric is reduced to harmless generalities. There is no militant application of Catholic doctrine to condemn the tyrannical, anti-Christian power. The supernatural interpretation is evacuated of its sharp doctrinal and political edge. It becomes spiritualized consolation without the concrete proclamation: communism is, in its principles and deeds, a revolt against God, the Church, and the natural law, condemned repeatedly by pre‑1958 popes.
Compare:
– Pius XI in Quas Primas teaching that peace is only possible in the Kingdom of Christ, demanding public recognition of Christ’s rights by rulers, condemning laicism and apostasy.
– Pius IX in the Syllabus condemning the separation of Church and State, religious indifferentism, the subordination of the Church to the secular power, and the Masonic “rights of man” ideology.
John XXIII’s letter, by contrast:
– Offers personal consolations.
– Praises virtues.
– Grants a pseudo-“Apostolic Blessing.”
– But surgically omits the necessary doctrinal and political clarity.
This is not accidental. It is symptomatic. A man preparing a council that will enthrone “religious freedom,” “dialogue” with those very enemies, and practical acceptance of laicized states, cannot, in the same breath, speak with the clarity of Pius IX and Pius XI. Hence the silence.
Silence, here, is complicity.
Linguistic Cosmetics: Personalism Without Doctrinal Edge
The letter’s tone is intentionally sentimental and personalist:
– “beloved Son of Ours”,
– “highly esteem your soul’s praises”,
– “firm constancy of an unconquered heart”,
– “paternal wishes we pray”,
– “hidden fountain of pious joys”.
It is all courteous and edifying in style. But the theological substance is reduced to vague, affective spirituality. The language:
– does not name Christ as King of States and Nations,
– does not restate the objective rights of the Church against totalitarian regimes,
– does not recall the condemnations of socialism, communism, and secret societies constantly repeated by the pre‑1958 magisterium,
– does not exhort the faithful to resist impious commands of the state in the name of divine law, as Pius IX explicitly insisted.
This verbal strategy—warmth without dogmatic sharpness—is precisely what characterizes the conciliar sect: continual reference to “charity,” “consolation,” “understanding,” and “dialogue,” without the necessary correlative: non possumus toward error (we cannot) and the assertion that the law of Christ objectively binds rulers and peoples.
Where Pius IX and Pius X spoke in juridical and dogmatic clarity, condemning concretely the Masonic and modernist systems, John XXIII wraps moral heroism in a fog of generalities that can later be harmonized with coexistence with those same systems.
This is not an innocent stylistic change; it is the linguistic symptom of a theological shift from objective truth to subjectivist personalism.
Theological Incoherence: Commending Fidelity While Subverting Its Foundations
From an integral Catholic standpoint, a deeper contradiction emerges.
Stepinac’s merit—according to pre‑1958 Catholic doctrine—lay precisely in:
– His adherence to the traditional doctrine that the Church is a perfect society, independent of and superior to the State in all that concerns salvation.
– His refusal to submit the Church in Croatia to an atheistic, totalitarian regime.
– His resistance to national schismatic projects subservient to communist power.
– His witness to the unique salvific character of the Catholic Church in direct opposition to indifferentism and nationalized pseudo-churches.
These positions are in direct continuity with:
– Pius IX: condemnation of national churches, state control, religious indifferentism.
– Leo XIII: insistence on the harmony of Church and State only when the State respects the rights of the Church and recognizes Christ’s sovereignty.
– Pius XI: rejection of laicism, proclamation of Christ’s universal Kingship.
– Pius XII: condemnations of communism and any attempt to enslave the Church to political regimes.
But John XXIII:
– Inaugurated a process leading to “religious liberty” understood as the civil right to practice any religion or none, contrary to the doctrinal line from Pius IX to Pius XII.
– Opened to “dialogue” with communists and other enemies of the Church.
– Initiated the council that would be used to justify doctrinal relativization, ecumenism with schismatics and heretics, and capitulation before secular powers.
Thus the theological incoherence is staggering:
– He praises Stepinac for precisely those qualities that, if applied consistently, would condemn the conciliar project that John XXIII himself set into motion.
– He appropriates Stepinac’s sufferings to certify his own “orthodoxy,” while simultaneously dismantling the doctrinal and disciplinary framework that produced Stepinac’s witness.
In terms of Catholic theology:
Contradictio in adiecto (a contradiction in terms): a revolutionary usurper of the papal office cannot coherently praise a confessor for fidelity to the very doctrinal order he is overturning. The praise becomes propaganda.
Misuse of the Cross: From Redemptive Suffering to Political Neutralization
The letter urges Stepinac to draw austere joy from suffering injustice: “it is better to undergo injustices than to inflict them.” This is, considered in itself, an evangelical principle, echoing Our Lord’s teaching and the traditional ascetical doctrine.
However, again, something essential is missing:
– No statement that communist persecution is objectively unjust because it opposes Christ’s Church.
– No exhortation to the persecuted faithful to adhere strictly to the integral faith, sacraments, and discipline of the Church, rejecting any compromise.
– No warning against regimes attempting to fabricate “patriotic” or national churches under state control—a key tactic of communism.
This spiritualization of the Cross, abstracted from the concrete confession of truth against concrete systems of error, is a subtle deformation:
– Suffering is acknowledged,
– but the cause of suffering—the clash between the Reign of Christ and the satanic rebellion of atheistic power—is not boldly proclaimed.
Pre‑1958 doctrine is clear:
– The Church must identify and condemn systems that deny God, attack the Church, or subvert natural law.
– Persecution is not merely “misfortune,” but the manifestation of a doctrinal and moral conflict.
– Confessors and martyrs witness not to generic virtues, but to concrete truths: the uniqueness of the Catholic Church, the Kingship of Christ, the rights of His Spouse against the state.
John XXIII’s letter blurs this into safe, apolitical piety.
This distortion anticipates the entire post‑conciliar narrative:
– Martyrs and confessors are celebrated as generic heroes of conscience, of “human dignity,” of “religious freedom,” while their explicit adherence to the integral Catholic faith and the condemnation of error are progressively muted.
– The Cross becomes an aesthetic or humanitarian symbol, severed from the doctrinal and ecclesial obedience that gives it salvific meaning.
Subjugation of the Faithful to a Pseudo-Magisterium
The closing formula:
– extends an “Apostolic Blessing” from John XXIII to Stepinac, his auxiliaries, clergy, and faithful.
From the standpoint of Catholic doctrine articulated prior to 1958:
– The Roman Pontiff’s authority is absolute in faith and morals under the conditions defined by the Magisterium.
– But a manifest heretic or one inaugurating a new religion cannot be head of the Church; non potest esse caput qui non est membrum (he cannot be the head who is not a member).
Pre‑conciliar theologians (Bellarmine and others) hold that:
– A public, notorious heretic cannot retain the papal office.
– A pseudo-magisterium that contradicts prior defined teaching must be rejected.
John XXIII’s initiatives:
– calling a council whose agenda and fruits opposed the consistent anti-liberal, anti-indifferentist line of his predecessors;
– favoring ambiguous language that would later be weaponized against the social Kingship of Christ and the integrity of Catholic doctrine;
– setting aside the militantly anti-Masonic and anti-modernist stance of Pius IX and Pius X,
mark him, in light of prior doctrine, not as a guarantor of the faith, but as an architect of deviation. His “blessing,” therefore, does not represent the juridical act of the Roman Pontiff safeguarding the deposit of faith, but the attempt of a usurper to bind faithful Catholics morally to an emerging conciliar structure.
This letter thereby becomes a paradigm of the tactic:
– Attach the names of true confessors to the authority of a false shepherd.
– Gradually lead the faithful to accept the usurper’s legitimacy on the basis of such emotional associations.
– Then, under that presumed authority, impose the conciliar novelties: ecumenism, religious liberty, false “dialogue,” softening of condemnations of communism, and the dissolution of the public reign of Christ.
Symptom of the Conciliar Project: From Integral Faith to Humanistic Diplomacy
When read against the firm teaching of:
– Pius IX (Syllabus of Errors),
– Leo XIII,
– Pius X (Lamentabili sane exitu, Pascendi Dominici Gregis),
– Pius XI (Quas Primas),
– Pius XII,
this letter is a microcosm of the conciliar spirit in embryo:
1. On the factual level:
– It accurately acknowledges Stepinac’s appointment, persecution, and honors.
– It omits the full doctrinal context of those honors and that persecution.
– It suppresses any application of prior magisterial condemnations to the present regime.
2. On the linguistic level:
– It replaces precise doctrinal terminology with edifying but nebulous rhetoric.
– It emphasizes virtues detached from their doctrinal anchoring.
– It cultivates a climate of sentimental approval rather than militant confession.
3. On the theological level:
– It fails to proclaim Christ’s social Kingship and the rights of the Church against the state.
– It avoids calling communism by its name or unmasking the ideological hatred driving the persecution.
– It reframes persecution primarily as an occasion for private sanctification, not as a battlefield where the objective rights of God and His Church must be asserted.
4. On the symptomatic level:
– It reveals the conciliar method: using the language of tradition selectively while in practice emptying it of its anti-liberal, anti-modernist content.
– It prepares the faithful to accept, from the same “mouth” that praises Stepinac, a council and subsequent reforms diametrically opposed to the pre‑1958 magisterium.
A genuine successor of Pius XI and Pius XII, congratulating a confessor persecuted by communists, would:
– Explicitly condemn the atheist regime.
– Reaffirm the duty of states to recognize and serve Christ the King.
– Recall prior condemnations of socialism, communism, and Masonic plots against the Church.
– Exhort the faithful to adhere to the integral faith and reject any compromise or national schismatic structures.
– Situate Stepinac’s sufferings as a testimony to these immutable truths.
John XXIII does none of this. Instead, he offers a politically innocuous spiritual tribute that can coexist perfectly with Ostpolitik, religious liberty, and the subsequent betrayal of the rights of Christ the King.
This letter, therefore, is not a harmless devotional text. It is an early icon of the conciliar sect’s method:
– cloak the revolution in the memory of true confessors,
– anesthetize doctrinal vigilance with warm words,
– and gradually lead souls away from the immutable, integral Catholic faith that alone recognizes, as Pius XI authoritatively taught, that peace and justice can only exist under the public, social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Source:
Abeunte tibi – Ad Aloisium S. R. E. Card. Stepinac, Archiepiscopum Zagrabiensem, quintum et vicesimum annum a suscepto Episcopatu implentem, Die 14 m. Iunii a. 1959, Ioannes PP.XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025