In this Latin letter dated 4 April 1959, John XXIII addresses the Ministers General of the four Franciscan branches on the 750th anniversary of Innocent III’s approbation of the Franciscan Rule. He praises Francis as lawgiver and exemplar of poverty, celebrates the historical fecundity of the Franciscan movement in the Church and in “civilization,” urges fidelity to the Rule, calls for renewed zeal in preaching adapted to modern conditions, and invokes Our Lady’s patronage over the Franciscan families, concluding with his “Apostolic Blessing.”
From the standpoint of unchanging Catholic doctrine, this apparently pious text already manifests the poisoned springs of conciliar naturalism and prepares the mutilation of the Franciscan vocation in service of the conciliar sect.
Sentimental Glorification as a Mask for Doctrinal Subversion
Fact-Level Deconstruction: Selective History in the Service of a New Religion
The letter outwardly recalls a real and glorious fact: Innocent III’s oral confirmation of the primitive Franciscan forma vitae, later solemnly approved in the bull Solet annuere (1223). However:
1. The text instrumentalizes Innocent III and Francis:
– John XXIII evokes the decisive act of a true Pope toward a true founder, yet he offers only a vague, feel-good narrative:
“Fons parvus crevit in fluvium maximum… lux et sol ortus est, et humiles exaltati sunt.”
This imagery is applied without any doctrinal precision about what that “river” actually is: the penitential, cruciform, rigorously Catholic observance of the evangelical counsels, under strict papal authority, for the salvation of souls.
– There is no reminder that the same Innocent III, who approved Francis, also solemnly defined outside the Church there is no salvation (e.g. Fourth Lateran Council, can. 1), and that Francis’s obedience was obedience to a monarchical, dogmatic Church, not to a parliament of “dialogue.”
2. Suppression of the penitential and militant character:
– Francis is presented as a poetic icon of “humility” and “poverty,” but the letter silences:
– his ferocious hatred of heresy,
– his insistence on unconditional submission to the Roman Pontiff in the sense of the pre-1958 papacy,
– his life as a living rebuke of worldliness within clergy and laity alike.
– By reducing Francis to a universally acceptable moral symbol, John XXIII prepares his later aggiornamento: a Francis suitable for Masonic-humanitarian propaganda, not for the restoration of the *regnum Christi*.
3. Naturalistic broadening of mission:
– The letter lauds Franciscan influence “in Christian civilization” and among peoples where “arts and sciences progress,” conflating:
– supernatural apostolate ordered to conversion and baptism,
– with mere contribution to humanistic culture and social uplift.
– This rhetorical fusion relativizes the primary end of religious life: *salus animarum per cultum Dei et propriam sanctificationem* (the salvation of souls through the worship of God and one’s own sanctification).
In sum, at the factual level, the letter offers a polished historical vignette while evacuating the hard, supernatural core of the Franciscan charism. This is not innocent; it is method.
Linguistic Symptoms: Pious Vocabulary in the Service of Human-Centered Ideology
Language here is the laboratory in which the future conciliar deformation is synthesized.
1. Ambiguous exaltation of “progress”:
– John XXIII praises the influence of Francis “in civil life and the progress of doctrines and arts,” placing spiritual fecundity alongside worldly development as if they were coordinate goods.
– This lexical pairing prefigures the conciliar *cultus hominis* (cult of man) condemned in substance already by Pius IX’s Syllabus, which rejects the notion that human society can be ordered as if “progress,” “civilization,” and “liberty” were autonomous from Christ and His Church (cf. Syllabus, propositions 3, 56-57, 77-80).
2. Softened spiritual combat:
– The vice denounced is vaguely “atheism” or “neglect of divine law,” described as a kind of tragic byproduct of technological advance:
“Ob miram progressionem artium… homines in atheismum vel in divinarum legum neglegentiam… facile incidunt.”
– This language treats apostasy primarily as psychological drift, not as the organized, Masonic, modernist warfare against the Kingship of Christ and the authority of the Church, which Pius IX and Leo XIII explicitly unmask as deliberate conspiracy, not a naive accident.
– The tone is paternalistic and sentimental, not judicial or prophetic. The bishops of the Church are not summoned to wield the sword of doctrine and anathema, but the friars are invited to provide a “warmer climate” to thaw a spiritual winter.
3. Manipulation of evangelical poverty:
– The call that Franciscans should show “how sweet it is to worship God content with little”:
“quam suave et optabile sit parvo contenta paupertate Deum colere atque… semper laetari et facere bene.”
– This formulation is dangerously ambiguous:
– It suggests a pleasant, aesthetic poverty instead of the crucified, expiatory, uncompromising poverty of the Rule.
– It replaces *poenitentia* with “always rejoicing and doing good” — an innocuous moralism easily absorbed by liberal humanitarianism.
The rhetoric is anti-ascetical in effect: it anesthetizes the supernatural drama of sin, penance, judgment, and hell, replacing it with an emotive Franciscanism for a “modern man” who must be comforted, not converted.
Theological Betrayals: Francis Appropriated for the Conciliar Sect
Now to confront the letter with integral Catholic doctrine prior to 1958.
1. Silence on the absolute Kingship of Christ over nations:
– Pius XI in Quas primas teaches that true peace and order depend on the public recognition of Christ’s royal rights; states must submit their laws, education, and institutions to His dominion.
– This letter, written in 1959, precisely at the threshold of the conciliar revolt, never once recalls that the Franciscan mission must serve the restoration of the social reign of Christ the King. Instead we find:
– vague references to helping a world threatened by atheism,
– no demand that rulers and institutions conform to the law of Christ,
– no condemnation of religious indifferentism or laicism.
– This omission is not accidental: it aligns with the soon-to-be codified conciliar dogma of “religious liberty” and “dialogue,” directly opposed to the Syllabus of Pius IX and to Quas primas.
2. Misuse of obedience to the “Apostolic See”:
– The letter exhorts the Franciscans:
“Apostolicae Sedi ex instituto et more vestro in exemplum addicti…”
– The historical Franciscan obedience is invoked to bind them to the very person inaugurating the conciliar revolution.
– Catholic theology (St. Robert Bellarmine, the unanimous Fathers cited in the Defense of Sedevacantism file) holds that a manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church; obedience has a formal object: the Catholic faith. To demand absolute adhesion to a man and a program that will unleash religious liberty, collegiality, false ecumenism, and liturgical subversion is to weaponize the Franciscan vow of obedience against the faith.
– Thus the exhortation becomes perverted: it is no longer “Follow the See of Peter in quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,” but “Follow the conciliar aggiornamento because you are obedient.”
3. Adaptation of preaching to “modern methods” without doctrinal safeguards:
– John XXIII commands:
“in verbi Dei praedicandi munus prisco animi ardore et novis, si oportet, aetati nostrae rationibus et viis congruentibus incumbatis.”
– The key here is the lack of any doctrinal criterion. The exhortation:
– does not insist that the content of preaching must be exactly that of Trent, the Syllabus, Pascendi, Lamentabili, Quas primas, etc.;
– does not explicitly anathematize modernist exegesis and theology already condemned by St. Pius X.
– In the context of 1959, this vague appeal to “methods and ways suited to our age” functions as a blank cheque for aggiornamento. It is precisely the language Modernists exploit: change the method, and you secretly change the message.
– St. Pius X in Pascendi and Lamentabili sane exitu condemned the idea that dogma evolves under the pressure of modern consciousness or that pastoral needs justify revising doctrine. The letter of John XXIII, by omitting any reference to this, tacitly overturns that anti-modernist bulwark.
4. Absence of any real warning against Modernism:
– The great internal enemy, denounced by St. Pius X as “the synthesis of all heresies,” is not named.
– There is no admonition to the Franciscans to root out:
– liberal biblical criticism,
– relativistic “spirituality,”
– liturgical experimentation,
– ecumenist betrayal of the *una fides, unum baptisma, una Ecclesia*.
– Instead, the blame is shifted to an anonymous “atheism” of the age, as if the house were not being eaten from within by theologians and “clerics” whom the conciliar sect would soon promote.
This silence is devastating. When a supposed pastor, especially at the threshold of a council, speaks to an order historically chosen by Providence as a scourge of error and a trumpet of penance—and omits any mention of the reigning heresy inside the clergy—he acts, in effect, as protector of that heresy.
Symptomatic Exposure: How Conciliar Apostasy Hijacks the Franciscan Name
The letter is emblematic of a deeper, systemic corruption.
1. Transformation of Francis into a mascot of conciliar humanitarianism:
– The authentic Franciscan vocation is:
– radical poverty for love of the Crucified,
– strict observance of a papally approved Rule,
– preaching of penance,
– absolute doctrinal orthodoxy,
– combat against error,
– loyalty to the sacrificial, propitiatory character of the Most Holy Sacrifice.
– In this letter, Francis is recast as:
– a symbol of “peaceful” witness,
– a gentle inviter to “meliora diligenda” (higher goods) without specifying that those goods are the hard demands of the Cross and the dogmas of the Church.
– This Francis is perfectly compatible with the neo-church: he is emptied of dogmatic sharpness and turned into the patron of ecology, interreligious dialogue, and social activism—the same caricature later enthroned by the conciliar sect.
2. Preparation of the liturgical and disciplinary devastation:
– By linking fidelity to the Rule with unqualified adherence to John XXIII and adaptation to modern conditions, the letter psychologically disarms the Franciscan leadership:
– If they obey, they must accept the coming sabotage of the Most Holy Sacrifice and of religious discipline.
– If they resist, they are branded as disobedient to the one invoking Francis and Innocent III.
– This is a refined perversion of obedience: *abusus non tollit usum* (abuse does not take away proper use), but here the abuse is enthroned as the norm.
3. Integration of Franciscans into the paramasonic project:
– The same pre-conciliar magisterium (Pius IX, Leo XIII, etc.) that condemned Freemasonry and liberalism explains that the naturalistic program of “human progress,” religious liberty, and the neutral state is intrinsically opposed to Christ’s Kingship.
– This letter:
– adopts the vocabulary of progress and global concern,
– avoids the Syllabus’ absolute condemnations,
– and invites the Franciscan families to be, in practice, auxiliary troops of that new “Church of the New Advent” which would soon sign onto religious liberty and ecumenism.
– Thus the Franciscans are steered away from being a thorn in the side of Masonic liberalism, and towards being its spiritualized decoration.
4. Spiritual consequences for the faithful:
– A Franciscan family formed according to this letter:
– warms itself with sentimental “joy” language,
– dilutes penance,
– accommodates modern thought under the pretext of apostolate,
– neutralizes its own capacity to denounce the abominations of the conciliar liturgy and doctrine.
– The faithful, seeing the brown habit and hearing talk of Francis and poverty but receiving a horizontal moralism and an ecumenical tolerance, are deceived: they think they find the Church; in reality they are ushered deeper into the neo-church’s labyrinth.
The Gravity of Omissions: Where the Silence Screams Apostasy
The most damning elements are precisely what is not said.
1. No explicit profession of integral doctrine:
– No clear reaffirmation of:
– the Tridentine dogma on the Holy Mass as propitiatory sacrifice,
– the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation,
– the objective error and sin of false religions,
– the binding condemnations of Modernism in Lamentabili and Pascendi.
– When John XXIII tells Franciscans to preach the word of God with new methods, without binding them to these doctrinal ramparts, he implicitly invites them to abandon them.
2. No warning against the conciliar agenda:
– At this date, John XXIII is actively preparing the council that would enshrine:
– religious liberty (against Syllabus 15, 77-80),
– ecumenism (against exclusivity of the true Church),
– collegiality (weakening papal monarchy),
– liturgical revolution (against Quo primum and the doctrine of Trent).
– Yet nothing in the letter hints that the Franciscans must resist such innovations. Instead, their historical charism is being conscripted to legitimize them.
3. No centrality of the sacraments and state of grace:
– Apart from general exhortations to edifying life and preaching, there is no emphasis that:
– the Franciscan mission is to lead souls to confession, to the worthy reception of Holy Communion, to perseverance in the state of grace, to avoid hell.
– This omission is catastrophic. An authentic Catholic exhortation to religious would insist on:
– Eucharistic reparation,
– strict observance of choir and Divine Office,
– mortification,
– defense of purity,
– zeal for the salvation of souls from eternal damnation.
– Its absence betrays a naturalistic optic: moral example replaces sacramental militancy.
4. No denunciation of liberal state and laicist structures:
– Pius IX and Leo XIII taught that the Church must resist the secularization and subjugation of ecclesiastical life to the State, and must reject the thesis of separation as an ideal.
– John XXIII, in this letter, is silent. Franciscans, historically persecuted by secular regimes, are not encouraged to combat the idea that the public order can be religiously neutral. Instead, they are directed to be edifying within that order.
Silence here is not neutrality; it is complicity. *Qui tacet consentire videtur* (he who is silent is seen to consent) when he has the duty to denounce.
Reclaiming the True Franciscan Spirit Against the Neo-Church
In the light of pre-1958 doctrine, what would a faithful reading of Francis require—against the program encoded in this letter?
1. Return to the Rule as it was understood under true Popes:
– The Franciscan family must:
– restore strict poverty without socialist politicization,
– restore penance, fasting, discipline,
– restore doctrinal preaching against heresy and indifferentism,
– restore adoration of Christ the King, including His social Kingship over nations.
2. Reject Modernist “adaptation”:
– *Lex credendi, lex orandi, lex vivendi*: the faith, worship, and life stand or fall together.
– Any call to adapt methods must be subjected to the unyielding standard of:
– the Council of Trent,
– the Syllabus,
– Pastor aeternus (Vatican I),
– the anti-modernist magisterium of St. Pius X.
– If “adaptation” means diluting dogma, softening the Cross, tolerating error, participating in pseudo-ecumenical rites, or accepting a mutilated liturgy, it is objectively apostasy.
3. Recognize the incompatibility between the conciliar sect and the Franciscan vocation:
– The conciliar sect:
– enthrones religious liberty,
– fraternizes with heresy and infidelity,
– profanes the liturgy,
– glorifies man.
– The authentic Franciscan vocation:
– professes *una fides*,
– abhors heresy,
– adores the Eucharistic Sacrifice,
– glories only in the Crucified.
– Therefore, to be truly Franciscan is to stand against the conciliar revolution, not to serve as its ornament.
4. Let life speak—truthfully:
– John XXIII says “even if you are silent, let your life speak.” That is valid only if:
– the life is visibly, doctrinally, liturgically Catholic in the integral pre-1958 sense.
– A habit without the faith, poverty without dogma, “joy” without penance, “brotherhood” without conversion, are not evangelical signs; they are counterfeit sacraments of the neo-church.
Conclusion: A Harmless-Looking Text as Vector of Systemic Apostasy
This 1959 letter is not an isolated devotional piece. It is an early, skillfully worded instrument whereby John XXIII:
– appropriates the authority of Innocent III and the halo of St. Francis;
– empties their legacy of its anti-modernist, penitential, and militant content;
– binds the Franciscan families emotionally and juridically to his person and to adaptation to “modern conditions”;
– avoids all the precise doctrinal fortifications erected by his predecessors against liberalism and Modernism;
– thereby prepares the incorporation of Franciscan structures into the conciliar sect and its humanistic, naturalistic, pseudo-evangelical project.
What appears as a gentle natal celebration is, under theological scrutiny, an ideological reprogramming: from Francis of Assisi as trumpet of penance and soldier of the Church, to “Francis” as soft mascot of the Church of the New Advent. Those who desire to remain Catholic in the sense held “semper, ubique, ab omnibus” must unmask and repudiate such texts, and reclaim the authentic Franciscan spirit in unbroken continuity with the pre-1958 Magisterium and the perennial faith of the Church.
Source:
Cum Natalicia – Ad Augustinum Sépinski, Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Ministrum Generalem; Victorium Costantini, Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Conventualium Ministrum Generalem; Clementem A Milwaukee, Ordinis Fra… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025