In this Latin letter dated 20 March 1961, John XXIII appoints Cardinal Amleto Giovanni Cicognani as his legate to a catechetical congress in Dallas for bishops and catechists from the United States, Canada, and Latin America. He praises the scope of the meeting, exhorts catechists to fidelity, zeal, prayer, humility, and reliance on divine grace, and frames their task as an honorable service that yields spiritual fruit, crowning the text with his “apostolic blessing.” This apparently harmless exhortation, read in its historical and doctrinal context, is in fact a small but telling brick in the edifice of the conciliar revolution: a pious varnish masking a program of catechetical disarmament and preparation for the neo-church’s destruction of integral doctrine.
John XXIII’s “Admodum gratum”: Pious Vocabulary in Service of Doctrinal Subversion
Context: A Pre-Conciliar Overture to the Catechetical Ruin of the Americas
The text must be situated in March 1961: less than two years before Vatican II, at the heart of John XXIII’s project to “open the windows” and relativize the anti-modernist discipline erected by Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV and Pius XI–XII. The letter concerns a “Conventus catechesi provehendae ex utraque America” in Dallas, convening hierarchs and catechetical planners from North and Latin America.
Key elements of the document:
– He warmly approves that bishops and catechists from the Americas gather to seek “apt counsels” and “expert methods” so that peoples may be more illumined by divine truth and “shine” with moral holiness.
– He appoints Cicognani as legate to preside in his name and praises his qualities.
– He extols catechists:
– as honored by their office,
– exhorts them to diligence, joy, fervor of faith,
– to cling to Christ in prayer,
– to trust not in “persuasive words of human wisdom” but in the power of God’s word (1 Cor 2:4),
– quoting Augustine that external magisteria are auxiliaries, while God alone teaches hearts.
– He sends a “blessing” to participants.
All this sounds orthodox to inattentive ears. But doctrinal analysis requires the criterion of the perennial Magisterium prior to 1958, not sentimental impressions or the authority-claims of the conciliar regime. Under that light, the text reveals a set of symptoms: calculated vagueness, displacement of doctrinal precision by pastoral rhetoric, and preparation for the new catechetical religion that would soon demolish the teaching condemned by the Syllabus, Lamentabili, Pascendi, and Quas Primas.
Factual Level: Harmless Congress or Strategic Reprogramming?
On the surface, the letter merely commissions a legate for a catechetical congress. However, several factual and contextual aspects are decisive:
1. The congress’ theme: “catechesis to be promoted” across both Americas.
– No reference to defending the faithful against condemned modernist errors.
– No reminder of the anti-liberal, anti-indifferentist principles solemnly reaffirmed by Pius IX in the Syllabus Errorum, or by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi.
– No call to combat socialism, communism, secret societies, and laicism as mortal enemies of the Reign of Christ—despite the open war of Freemasonry and secular states meticulously exposed by Pius IX (Syllabus, esp. sections IV, VI) and reiterated by later popes.
2. The chosen geography and audience:
– The United States, Canada, Latin America: precisely the territories where, in coming decades, catechesis would be gutted—dogma replaced with “experience,” moral teaching relativized, and the Most Holy Sacrifice eclipsed by the protestantized, man-centred neo-rite.
– The Dallas meeting is one of the many pre-conciliar “pastoral” laboratories in which the conciliar sect incubated its future catechetical subversion: emphasis on method, psychology, adaptation; silence about the non-negotiable content defined by Trent, Vatican I and the anti-modernist Magisterium.
3. The letter’s total silence on the gravest dangers:
– No mention that true catechesis must explicitly reject:
– religious indifferentism (condemned in Syllabus 15–18),
– liberal “freedom of cult” (Syllabus 77–80),
– rationalism and naturalism (Syllabus 1–7, 39–40),
– evolution of dogma (condemned in Lamentabili 58–65),
– the separation of Church and State (condemned in Syllabus 55),
– the denial of Christ’s social Kingship (reaffirmed by Pius XI in Quas Primas).
– No insistence that catechesis must arm souls against modernist exegesis and “historical criticism,” explicitly identified by St. Pius X as the vehicle of the “synthesis of all heresies.”
This silence is not accidental. It is the method. At the very threshold of the Council, John XXIII encourages a continental catechetical endeavor with not one word about the precise doctrinal enemies systematically identified by his predecessors. That omission in such a context is itself an indictment: qui tacet consentire videtur (he who is silent seems to consent).
Linguistic Level: Soft Pastoralism as a Solvent of Dogma
The rhetoric of the letter is telling:
– Vague honorifics:
– Catechists are told to “consider it a distinguished honor” to transmit doctrine and to expect an “abundant harvest of merit.”
– This is true in itself—but presented without the complementary note that their work is null or pernicious if it deviates one iota from defined dogma. There is no echo of Trent’s anathemas against those who corrupt catechesis on justification, sacraments, the Mass.
– Emphasis on “methods” and “experts”:
– The congress is lauded for seeking “apt counsels” and “peritus ways.”
– This anticipates the conciliar slogan of “pastoral aggiornamento” where “methods” become the Trojan horse for changing doctrine under pedagogical pretexts.
– Nowhere is it said that all such methods are strictly subordinate to the fixed content the Church has already defined, and that they are worthless if they obscure, soften, or relativize any article of the Creed, any dogma on the Church, sacraments, grace, or the Kingship of Christ.
– Pious yet equivocal invocations:
– The text cites 1 Cor 2:4 and Augustine on God as the inward Teacher; fine in itself.
– Yet in this literary and historical setting, that emphasis can be (and in the conciliar atmosphere would be) read as shifting trust away from the clear, anti-modernist Magisterium towards a vague “inner illumination” easily conflated with the modernist cult of “religious experience” condemned by St. Pius X.
– Augustine’s teaching that God is the inward master never negates the necessity of the external Magisterium; the letter, however, omits any robust articulation of this ecclesial authority as doctrinally binding—precisely what Lamentabili and Pascendi reaffirmed against those who claimed that the Magisterium cannot define Scripture’s sense or bind internal assent.
– Sentimental tonality:
– The fatherly, soothing tone fits the coming conciliar lexicon: “encounter,” “dialogue,” “esteem,” “honor,” “blessing.”
– There is no militant note of the Church Militant, no anathema sit, no mention of error as mortal poison. The vocabulary of spiritual warfare is replaced by a bureaucratic optimism—typical of the nascent Church of the New Advent.
This kind of language does not openly state heresy. It does something more effective for subversion: it habituates clergy and catechists to an atmosphere where the integral condemnations of liberalism, modernism, and freemasonry are unspeakable, “excessive,” “unpastoral”—and thus practically abrogated.
Theological Level: Catechesis Emptied of Its Militant and Dogmatic Substance
Measured against the constant doctrine prior to 1958, several theological deficiencies and dangers stand out.
1. The absence of the Kingship of Christ and the public order of Christian society
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, teaches that peace and order depend upon the acknowledgment of Christ’s reign over individuals, families, and states, and that practical secularism and laicism are a “plague.” True catechesis must:
– teach the absolute primacy of Christ the King in public life,
– condemn separation of Church and State (Syllabus 55),
– reject the fiction of morally neutral pluralist states.
This letter, addressed to a pan-American catechetical congress in aggressively secularized and masonic-influenced nations, says nothing about:
– the duty of states to submit to Christ and His Church,
– the errors of religious liberty and pluralism,
– the masonic assault on Catholic education and family.
This silence indirectly endorses the liberal status quo, preparing the later conciliar exaltation of “religious freedom” and the practical denial of Christ’s social Kingship—an inversion of Quas Primas.
2. No mention of the anti-modernist obligations defined by St. Pius X
Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi condemn:
– the evolution of dogma,
– the subjection of dogma to historical criticism,
– the idea that revelation is just religious experience,
– the denial of Scripture’s inerrancy,
– the relativizing of Magisterium.
Catechists after 1907 are strictly bound to these condemnations. Yet:
– John XXIII’s letter does not even hint that catechesis must be explicitly anti-modernist.
– There is no reminder of the Oath against Modernism (then still in force).
– There is no warning against rationalist biblicism and “pastoral” dilution of doctrine.
The omission is theologically lethal: to speak of catechesis “to be promoted” while remaining silent about the authoritative anti-modernist norms is to invite their neglect, if not their practical abrogation.
3. Reducing catechetical formation to exhortation without dogmatic precision
The text exhorts to:
– diligence,
– joy,
– “fervor of faith,”
– union with Christ,
– humility.
All of these are good; but when abstracted from:
– integral teaching on original sin, grace, the necessity of the Church,
– the propitiatory nature of the Most Holy Sacrifice,
– the uniqueness of the Catholic Church for salvation (against Syllabus 16–18),
– the horror of heresy and mortal sin,
– the reality of hell and judgment,
this exhortation turns into mere spiritualized moralism, easily compatible with the coming “cult of man.” Authentic Catholic catechesis is doctrinal and sacramental, not vague motivational speaking.
4. Ambiguous use of Augustine that can be weaponized against the Magisterium
The letter quotes Augustine: “Cathedram in caelo habet qui corda docet” (“He who teaches hearts has His chair in heaven”). Augustine, however, vigorously affirms:
– the visible, hierarchical Church,
– the necessity of her external teaching,
– the sin of resisting her doctrinal judgments.
Detached from this context, the citation can reinforce modernist tendencies:
– “God teaches me interiorly; external dogma can evolve.”
– “We are auxiliaries; the Spirit leads beyond rigid formulas.”
St. Pius X condemned precisely this subjectivist deformation. To invoke Augustine in 1961 without explicitly subordinating all catechesis to the fixed, anti-modernist definitions is theologically irresponsible, at best; strategically subversive, at worst.
Symptomatic Level: A Micro-Document of the Conciliar Revolution
Seen within the broader process, this text is not an isolated pious note; it is symptomatic of the systemic apostasy of the conciliar sect.
1. From dogmatic precision to pastoral vagueness
Pre-1958 Magisterium speaks clearly:
– Syllabus: numbered errors, condemned.
– Lamentabili: precise propositions, anathematized.
– Quas Primas: unambiguous teaching on Christ’s social reign.
– Anti-masonic documents: explicit, severe condemnations.
John XXIII here replaces detailed doctrinal directives with general spiritual counsel. This hermeneutical shift:
– creates a “neutral” pedagogical space,
– into which, at Dallas and similar congresses, innovators would pour modernist content under cover of orthodoxy.
2. Preparing the apparatus: bishops and catechists as vectors of a new religion
The letter:
– dignifies catechists and their “methods,”
– confers institutional prestige on the Dallas gathering,
– sends a papal legate as an endorsement.
In practice, such gatherings:
– standardized the pastoral jargon later canonized by Vatican II and its catechetical apparatus,
– marginalized those clergy who still defended the anti-modernist line,
– formed the network that would implement new catechisms diluting or deforming:
– extra Ecclesiam nulla salus,
– the dogmas on sin, hell, sacrifice, and the unique mediating role of the Church.
The historical fruits are incontestable and verifiable:
– catastrophic catechetical ignorance in the Americas after the Council,
– collapse of belief in the Real Presence, the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the necessity of Confession,
– practical universalism and indifferentism.
No serious defender of the integral faith can pretend that such fruits are accidental. A tree is known by its fruits; the seed is already recognizable in the methodology and omissions of texts like this one.
3. The role of the occupied structures
This letter emanates from the same person who convoked Vatican II and inaugurated the demolition of the anti-modernist bastions. The “structures occupying the Vatican” deploy here their authority to:
– legitimize conferences where the premises of the future catechetical ruin are accepted as normal—“adapting,” “renewing,” “updating” catechesis.
– cloak the process with scriptural and patristic citations to disarm resistance.
Against this, pre-1958 doctrine stands immovable:
– The Church is a perfect, divine society (Syllabus 19).
– She possesses full right to teach, govern, and judge, independent of secular powers.
– Her defined doctrines admit no reversal, no “pastoral” relativization.
– Modernist attempts to evolve dogma or subject it to historical consciousness are damned errors.
Where there is deliberate erosion of these principles—by omission, by ambiguous language, by systematic neglect—the result is not development but treason.
The Central Omission: No Warning Against the Coming Catechetical Apostasy
The gravest indictment of this document is its silence about what mattered most at that precise hour:
– No insistence that catechisms and instruction must conform strictly to:
– the Roman Catechism of Trent,
– the decrees of Trent on sacraments and sacrifice,
– the anti-modernist syllabus and condemnations.
– No warning against:
– softening the doctrine on mortal sin and hell,
– masking the dogma of the one true Church under ecumenical language,
– neutralizing the anti-liberal condemnations disliked by the modern world.
– No admonition that catechesis must be Christocentric in the true sense:
– proclaiming Christ as King and Judge,
– calling to penance, sacramental life, and submission to the objective authority of the perennial Magisterium,
– denouncing naturalism, the cult of man, and the sovereignty of the state.
This omission, at the very moment when the enemies condemned by Pius IX and St. Pius X were preparing to invade catechesis under conciliar sponsorship, is not pastoral prudence but culpable complicity. Authentic shepherds warn; hirelings beautify.
Conclusion: An Edifying Mask for an Anti-Integral Program
“Admodum gratum” is a brief letter, but it is emblematic:
– It uses orthodox fragments of Scripture and Augustine, yet refuses to bind catechesis to the concrete anti-modernist content solemnly defined immediately prior.
– It encourages “methods” and “experts” while not once commanding fidelity to the Syllabus, Lamentabili, Pascendi, Quas Primas, or Trent.
– It exalts catechetical activity yet ignores the necessity of arming souls against liberalism, religious freedom ideology, ecumenism, and the cult of man.
By these omissions and this soft-focus language, it functions as a preparatory text for the conciliar sect’s catechetical apostasy. It is not a luminous affirmation of the unchanging faith but a gentle nudge away from it—proof that the crisis did not begin with spectacular excesses, but with apparently innocent documents that quietly set aside the Church’s integral, militant, anti-modernist doctrine.
Source:
Admodum gratum – Ad Hamletum Ioannem tit. S. Clementis S. R. E. Presbyterum Cardinalem Cicognani, quem Legatum deligit ad. Conventum catechesi provehendae ex utraque America in urbe Dallas (Texas) cel… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025