John XXIII’s Latin letter “Apostolorum choro,” addressed to Basil Heiser of the Conventual Franciscans, commemorates the 19th centenary of the martyrdom of St James the Less, praises the decision to celebrate solemn festivities in the Roman Basilica of the Holy Apostles, links this cult of the Apostle (and of St Philip) with spiritual support for the then-forthcoming Second Vatican Council, and exhorts that the faithful be instructed from the Epistle of St James so that their faith be living and fruitful. The entire text appears devout and scriptural, yet it quietly instrumentalizes the Apostles’ authority in order to place a halo over the already programmed conciliar revolution, making the Apostolic cult a liturgical prelude to the demolition of Apostolic doctrine itself.
The Apostolic Façade as Liturgical Cover for Revolution
Invocation of the Apostles to Sanction a Non-Apostolic Council
The letter is brief, but every decisive element is present:
– It extols St James the Less and St Philip as models.
– It designates the Basilica of the Holy Apostles as the privileged locus of this commemoration.
– It explicitly orients the entire celebration toward securing heavenly aid for the convocation and success of the so‑called Second Vatican Council.
– It frames this Council as a “great event” promising the “springtime” of “spiritual renewal” for the age.
The core move is transparent: the usurper John XXIII cloaks his already announced aggiornamento in apostolic incense, presenting the future conciliar assembly as the natural and blessed extension of the Apostles’ mission. That is the theological perversion at the heart of this letter.
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine prior to 1958, this gesture is intolerable. The Apostles, *Ecclesiarum principes, belli triumphales duces, vera mundi lumina* (“princes of the Churches, triumphant leaders in battle, soldiers of the heavenly court, and true lights of the world”) as quoted from the Roman Breviary, shed their blood for the *integrity* of the deposit of faith, not for its relativization, naturalization, or democratic dilution.
What does John XXIII do here?
– He appropriates this authentic apostolic imagery.
– He silently redefines its object: their “patronage” is evoked not for the defence of the received deposit (*depositum custodi*, 1 Tim 6:20) but for the success of an assembly which would, in fact, undermine the social Kingship of Christ, open the doors to condemned religious liberty, and enthrone the cult of man.
This is not a mere pious flourish. It is a calculated liturgical-ideological operation.
Selective Piety: When Orthodoxy in Form Serves Subversion in Substance
At the factual level, the text appears traditional:
– It recalls the martyrdom and sanctity of St James the Less.
– It refers to his canonical Epistle and its doctrine that faith without works is dead.
– It calls for catechesis on his life and virtues.
– It joins the veneration of St Philip and all the Apostles.
– It cites Scripture (Ezechiel, James) and the Roman Breviary.
None of this, taken in isolation, would scandalize a Catholic of the 19th century. That is precisely the danger. The poison is in the orientation, the subtext, and the omissions.
Key maneuver:
– The entire apostolic remembrance is explicitly subordinated to one aim: support for Vatican II.
“…cum Sanctorum Apostolorum munimine, praesidio, lumine in praesentiarum, magnum cum instat eventum, scilicet Oecumenicum Concilium Vaticanum secundum, summopere opus esse…”
Translation: the “great event” requiring the Apostles’ protection is the Second Vatican Council. Not the defence of the Church against socialism, liberalism, and Freemasonry – but the launch of the very “pastoral” project by which these forces would be amiably “dialogued” with and effectively enthroned inside the visible structures.
This is the inversion: Apostolic prestige is borrowed to legitimize an anti-apostolic agenda.
The Language of “Springtime” Versus the Catholic Doctrine of the Kingship of Christ
Note the characteristic vocabulary:
– “huic aetati magnam affulgere spem” – “for this age a great hope shines forth”
– “spiritualis renovationis quasi floridum ver” – “as it were a flowering springtime of spiritual renewal”
This rhetoric is not merely stylistic; it encodes a doctrinal shift.
Before 1958, the Magisterium spoke in clear antithesis against the world, its errors, and its “modern civilization” divorced from Christ:
– Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemns the idea that “the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and come to terms with, progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (prop. 80).
– The same Syllabus and associated allocutions condemn religious indifferentism, the equality of all cults before the law, the separation of Church and State, the autonomy of human reason from revelation – precisely those ideas which Vatican II and the conciliar sect later embraced or ambiguously facilitated.
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* sharply teaches that peace and order can only exist where the public reign of Christ the King is recognized; he denounces secularism and laicism as the root plague of society.
In this light, the “springtime” language is not innocent. It is code for reconciliation with the world condemned by prior Popes. The letter reframes the expectation:
– Not the triumph of the social Kingship of Christ over rebellious nations,
– but the blooming of a nebulous “spiritual renewal” whose content is left undefined, because its real content would contradict the pre‑1958 Magisterium.
The Apostles are invoked, but the central notes of their doctrine are suppressed:
– No mention of the unique necessity of belonging to the Catholic Church for salvation.
– No assertion of the obligation of states to submit to Christ the King, in precise contradiction to the future conciliar text Dignitatis Humanae.
– No warning against heresy within, no allusion to Modernism already anathematized by St Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili*.
– No mention of final judgment unless in vague liturgical tone; no call to repentance addressing concrete modern sins of nations.
The language is soft, irenic, optimistic, horizontal. It flatters “this age” instead of judging it. That is modernist in spirit, even where the words themselves are not yet openly heterodox.
The Omission That Condemns: Silence on Modernism and Masonic Subversion
The gravest indictment of this letter is not any explicit false proposition; it is the systematic silence where Catholic duty demands clarity.
Consider what was fully known by 1962:
– The sustained penetration of liberal, rationalist, and Masonic ideas into governments and cultural life, denounced repeatedly by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– The doctrinal synthesis of Modernism condemned as “the sewer where all heresies meet” and “the synthesis of all heresies” (*Pascendi*; *Lamentabili*).
– The repeated papal warnings against religious indifferentism, false ecumenism, biblical relativism, and the subversion of Catholic education and marriage laws by secular states (Syllabus of Errors; *Mortalium Animos*; *Casti Connubii*; etc.).
An authentic successor of St Peter, in 1962, calling upon the Apostles on the eve of an Ecumenical Council, would:
– Recall solemnly the condemnations issued against liberalism and Modernism.
– Announce that the Council will reaffirm, in even more precise terms, the unique truth of the Catholic Church, the Kingship of Christ, and the incompatibility of the Church with the principles condemned in 1864 and 1907.
– Direct the faithful to the unchanging Magisterium as the lens for any conciliar text.
John XXIII does precisely the opposite:
– He speaks glowingly of a “great hope” for “this age” without identifying or condemning its reigning errors.
– He reduces the Apostles’ protection to a vague invocation for a “sacrosanct Synod” that, as history has shown, became the launching platform of religious liberty, ecumenism, and collegiality in the sense repeatedly condemned by the prior Magisterium.
– He offers no warning about the perils already identified by pre‑conciliar Popes: precisely what the Syllabus and *Pascendi* denounce.
This is not innocent omission. It is strategic. By baptizing the Council in apostolic imagery without reminding anyone of apostolic dogmatic severity, the letter anesthetizes Catholic vigilance.
Instrumentalizing St James: Faith and Works Emptied of Dogmatic Backbone
The text selectively uses the Epistle of St James:
“fidem sine operibus mortuam putari” – faith without works is dead.
This is true Catholic doctrine. Yet in this context it is deployed in a purely moralistic key:
– Emphasis on “operosa fides,” active faith.
– Suggestion of a desirable “actuosa” life of faith.
But there is total silence regarding:
– The necessity of *right faith* as the foundation of meritorious works.
– The fact that heresy itself, even with impressive works, severs from supernatural charity and salvation (cf. St Thomas Aquinas, II–II q.11; St Cyprian).
– The perennial teaching, recalled in the Syllabus, that one cannot place all religions on equal footing, nor suggest that any religion suffices for salvation.
By abstracting “faith and works” from the precise integral Catholic faith, the text anticipates the post‑conciliar moralism and activism:
– A Christianity reduced to ethical dynamism, social engagement, and “renewal,” severed from dogmatic militancy against error.
– A faith measured by “fruitfulness” in the eyes of the modern world, rather than by fidelity to the deposit of faith.
This subtly prepares the terrain on which the conciliar sect now justifies its humanitarianism, interreligious gestures, and cult of dialogue, claiming “faith and works” while dissolving the content of faith.
Theological Inversion: From Defending the Deposit to Blessing its Dilution
Pre‑1958 doctrine is lucid:
– *Lex credendi* is fixed. The Church has no power to invent new dogmas or reinterpret prior definitions in a contrary sense. As Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St Pius X consistently affirm, development means organic growth, not mutation.
– *Quas Primas* affirms the absolute rights of Christ the King over individuals and societies; religious liberty and pluralism are condemned as errors.
– The Syllabus condemns separation of Church and State, indifferentism, subjectivism, and the subjection of the Church to lay power.
– *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi* explicitly reject the notion of dogma evolving from “religious experience” or of doctrine being reshaped by “the needs of the age.”
Within this doctrinal framework, the Second Vatican Council (as actually carried out) is incompatible. Its texts on religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, and non‑Christian religions cannot be reconciled with the previous condemnations without resorting to the modernist hermeneutic of evolution in disguise.
John XXIII’s letter, by presenting the Council as a “sacrosancta Synodus” whose coming is surrounded solely with enthusiasm and apostolic invocation, performs a theological inversion:
– It presupposes that an assembly already conceptually marked by openness to condemned ideas will be, by that very fact, an extension of apostolic authority.
– It does not demand, as condition, subjection to the prior Magisterium; rather, it demands from the faithful a pre‑emptive trust that whatever will come from this Council, marketed as “spiritual spring,” is by that label good and Catholic.
This is the essence of modernist praxis: not an immediate frontal contradiction, but the creation of a new unquestioned “event” whose authority, once emotionally and liturgically sacralized, can be used to relativize earlier dogmatic clarity.
From Apostolic Martyrdom to Conciliar Sentimentalism
The letter contemplates St James crowned with martyrdom:
– True apostolic witness is sealed with blood shed in hatred of the faith (*odium fidei*).
– The Apostles resisted false religions, Judaizing errors, paganism, and nascent heresies with intransigent clarity.
– Their epistles thunder against double‑mindedness, friendship with the world, and adulteration of doctrine.
In stark contrast, what does this document implicitly bless?
– An upcoming Council that would abandon condemnation of communist regimes in its official texts, due to sordid diplomatic maneuvers.
– A “pastoral” posture toward false religions, later exploited to promote gatherings and gestures in which the unique salvific exclusivity of the Catholic Church is obscured or denied.
– The progressive replacement of the *Most Holy Sacrifice* by a man‑centred assembly rite, codified by the subsequent usurpers and staged daily by the conciliar sect.
The martyrdom of St James the Less is thus invoked not as a reproach to the world and to internal traitors, but as a decorative halo over a bureaucratic ecclesial optimism. The blood of an Apostle is annexed to confirm a “springtime” that would abolish anathemas, weaken catechesis, and open the sanctuary to sacrilege and, eventually, idolatry.
This is not piety; it is sacrilegious instrumentalization.
Linguistic Cosmetics: The Pious Latin of a Programmed Betrayal
On the linguistic level, the letter’s Latin is classical and devotional. But the rhetoric is diagnostic:
1. Carefully chosen, non-combative vocabulary:
– “spes,” “renovatio,” “floridum ver,” “nova lux,” “virtus nova.”
– No *error*, *haeresis*, *modernismus*, *sectae*, *proditores*, no language of warfare against the enemies of Christ already inside the structures.
2. A bureaucratic and ceremonial focus:
– Emphasis on “saecularia sollemnia,” organized festivity, external honour.
– Aesthetic concern displaces doctrinal urgency.
3. A subtle collectivism:
– Appeals to “christianus populus” to be instructed, but without specifying the content that must be defended against concrete contemporary doctrines.
– The crowd is mobilized to applaud a Council, not armed to resist the errors that Council would incubate.
In classical Catholic teaching, especially as seen in St Pius X’s anti-modernist documents, such tonality would itself be suspect. It signals a shift from *vigilantia* (vigilance) to sentimentalism, from *militia Christi* (the Church militant) to a Church in comfortable dialogue with “this age.”
Symptomatic Revelation: This Letter as Microcosm of the Conciliar Sect
This apparently harmless 1962 letter is a microcosm of the entire conciliar disaster:
– Use of venerable forms to introduce a new orientation.
– Suppression of previously binding condemnations.
– Confidence in “the age” and “renewal” instead of insistence on conversion and submission to Christ the King.
– Exploitation of apostolic and liturgical language to canonize a political-ecclesial project already tainted by liberal and Masonic infiltration condemned by prior Popes.
From the standpoint of integral Catholic doctrine:
– An authentic Vicar of Christ cannot present as a “great hope” a Council that would promote, or even ambiguously tolerate, principles condemned by the extraordinary and ordinary Magisterium.
– He cannot call upon the patronage of the Apostles to underwrite the slow demolition of the apostolic faith.
– He cannot endorse an undefined “springtime” that functionally means ceasefire with liberalism, ecumenism, and religious liberty.
Yet that is what this letter does at the level of orientation and symbolic politics. It is, therefore, a piece of spiritual disinformation: orthodox in citation, heterodox in trajectory.
Reasserting the Pre-1958 Criterion: Why This Letter Must Be Rejected
Measured by the only legitimate standard – the unchanging doctrinal corpus of the Church prior to the conciliar usurpation – the letter must be evaluated as follows:
– Its praise of St James and St Philip is acceptable insofar as it restates known truths.
– Its silence on Modernism, liberalism, Freemasonry, false ecumenism, and religious liberty, on the very eve of a council later exploiting those themes, is culpable.
– Its presentation of Vatican II as a “sacrosanct” hope, without conditioning it on strict adherence to the Syllabus, *Quas Primas*, *Pascendi*, *Lamentabili*, etc., is theologically deceptive.
– Its stylistic optimism about “this age” stands in stark tension with prior solemn condemnations of the principles governing that same age.
Therefore, from the perspective of the perennial Magisterium, this letter is not a harmless devotional encouragement; it is one more brick in the scaffolding erected to drape apostolic vesture over the birth of the conciliar sect. The Apostles are invoked while their faith is prepared for betrayal.
The only Catholic response is:
– To honour St James the Less, St Philip, and all Apostles according to the traditional liturgy and doctrine.
– To read the Epistle of St James as the Church always has: insisting that living faith is *Catholic faith* working by charity, inseparable from adherence to all defined dogma.
– To reject any attempt—however piously phrased—to conscript their names into the service of councils, documents, or leaders that contradict the pre‑1958 teaching on Christ’s Kingship, the unique truth of the Catholic Church, and the absolute condemnations of Modernism.
The Apostles belong to Christ and His unchanging Church, not to the revolutionary projects of the Church of the New Advent. Any document that seeks to annex their glory to such projects, as this letter does, reveals, beneath its incense, the stench of apostasy.
Source:
Apostolorum choro – Ad Basilium M. Heiser, Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Conventualium Moderatorem Generalem, undevicesimo volvente saeculo ex quo S. Iacobus Minor Ap. glorioso martyrio cursum vitae consumm… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025