Dated 21 August 1960, this Latin letter of John XXIII addresses Joseph Wendel of Munich-Freising on the occasion of the XXXVII International Eucharistic Congress in Munich. It overflows with congratulations for organizational success, praises civil collaboration, speaks of the televised ceremonies “from beginning to end,” extols the visible devotion of the crowds and frequent communions, and expresses the hope that such gatherings will foster charity, concord, and peace among nations. It is precisely in this apparently pious, ceremonial text that we see laid bare the programmatic naturalism, ecclesial falsification, and desacralization that prepared and embodied the conciliar revolution.
Euphoric Ritualism as a Manifesto of the Conciliar Betrayal of the Eucharist
From Eucharistic Faith to Liturgical Exhibitionism
On the surface, this letter appears to be a simple note of thanks. In reality, it is a coldly coherent piece of the new religion.
John XXIII’s entire emphasis is horizontal:
– He exalts the congress as a magnificent organizational and social success.
– He underlines the role of civil authorities and public spectacle.
– He delights in television broadcasting the final ceremonies “ab initio ad finem”.
– He reduces the fruits of the event to vague ideals of international harmony and temporal peace.
Nowhere does he:
– Proclaim with doctrinal clarity the Eucharist as *verum, reale et substantiale Corpus et Sanguis Christi* (true, real, and substantial Body and Blood of Christ), as defined dogmatically by the Council of Trent (Session XIII).
– Recall the Eucharist primarily as *propitiatory Sacrifice* for sins, reaffirmed infallibly by Trent (Session XXII), against the Protestant, purely convivial or commemorative notion.
– Warn against unworthy Communion, sacrilegious Communions, and the need for the state of grace (1 Cor 11:27–29), truths solemnly safeguarded by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
– Link the Eucharist with the necessity of the social reign of Christ the King over states, as Pius XI forcefully teaches in Quas Primas: peace is possible only in the Kingdom of Christ, not in religiously neutral diplomacy.
Instead, he delights in the impressive queues to receive Communion and in mass participation as a self-validating sign, devoid of any doctrinal discernment. By praising indiscriminately the enormous numbers approaching “Eucharistic bread” without a single doctrinal or moral condition, he promotes a Eucharistic populism that Trent and all authentic popes would have denounced as an invitation to sacrilege.
This is not an omission by accident; it flows from a program: replace *cultus veritatis* (worship of truth) with *cultus multitudinis* (worship of the crowd). The letter is a paradigm of that shift.
Linguistic Masque: Pious Vocabulary, Modernist Substance
The rhetoric of this document is revealing.
1. Emphasis on human arrangements and spectacle:
– John XXIII heaps flattery on Wendel for “magnificent generosity,” “sollicitia diligentia,” organizational excellence, and the welcome given to pilgrims.
– The central gaze is on the congress as a global event, a kind of religious exposition. The Eucharist is treated as the focal point of a grand human performance, not as the heart of the ongoing unbloody renewal of Calvary.
2. Televised liturgy as a self-conscious performance:
– He notes with special emotion that he followed the final ceremonies via television “ab initio ad finem”.
– The liturgy is here explicitly framed as an object for media transmission and visual consumption. A sacrificial mystery, which Catholic tradition veiled, guarded, and surrounded with holy fear, is now gloried in as televised spectacle, anticipating the theatrical, horizontal “celebrations” of the Church of the New Advent.
3. Sentimental pacifism instead of doctrinal peace:
– He interprets the congress as a sign and source that “serena diuturnaque illuceat pax” might shine upon nations.
– Yet he says nothing about that peace being inseparable from the submission of nations to Christ the King, condemned errors of liberalism (cf. Syllabus, especially 55, 77–80), rejection of false religions, and public profession of the one true Faith.
– It is the language of inter-national good feeling, not of Catholic militancy.
4. Flattery of civil power:
– He asks Wendel to convey his sentiments of satisfaction to the “civil authority.”
– There is no reminder—such as Pius XI and Pius IX insist upon—that rulers are bound to publicly honor Christ and His Church, and that secular power has no authority over the constitution of the Church or doctrine (cf. Syllabus, 19, 39, 55; Quas Primas on public recognition of Christ’s Kingship).
– The state becomes a cooperative partner in a religious festival, not a moral subject obligated to confess the true Faith.
The tone is courtly, soft, managerial. It avoids any polemical insistence on Catholic dogma. Precisely this polished, “pastoral,” diplomatically smiling language is the mark of theological decomposition. *Dolus sub sermone mitissimo* (deceit under the mildest speech).
Theological Emptiness: The Eucharist Without Sacrifice, Christ Without Kingship
Measured against the immutable doctrine of the Church prior to 1958, the letter is a grave descent.
1. Suppression of the sacrificial character:
– Trent dogmatically teaches that in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the same Christ who offered Himself once on the Cross is made present in an unbloody manner, a propitiatory Sacrifice for the living and the dead (Session XXII, can. 1–3).
– Authentic Roman pontiffs never spoke extensively of Eucharistic gatherings without clearly reaffirming this sacrificial and propitiatory nature.
– John XXIII, in this text, never once invokes the Sacrifice of Calvary, never speaks of propitiation, nor even clearly articulates the Real Presence in sacrificial terms. He reduces the Eucharist functionally to “Eucharistic bread” received en masse and a sign of unity and peace.
2. Indifferentism and naturalism in the idea of peace:
– By speaking of Eucharistic congress as an “orbis Statio” in Munich that should generate “mutuae caritatis coniunctionis emolumenta” and long peace for all nations, “pretiosissimo Dei Sanguine redemptis,” he uses correct phrases emptied of practical consequence.
– Pius XI in Quas Primas insists that abandoning the reign of Christ and the authority of the Church is the root of wars and social dissolution, and that true peace will not come until individuals and states publicly recognize Christ’s Kingship.
– John XXIII here offers peace language shorn of the crucial condition: conversion of individuals and nations to the one true Church, rejection of liberal indifferentism, denounced by Pius IX’s Syllabus (15–18, 55, 77–80).
– This deliberate formalism—implying universal redemption in a way that blurs the necessity of entering the true Church and remaining in the state of grace—is an early expression of the conciliar cult of man and its false optimism.
3. No warning against sacrilege:
– Trent and the constant Magisterium teach that whosoever receives unworthily is “guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11), and explicitly anathematize doctrines or practices that foster indiscriminate communions.
– The pre-1958 Church, especially in the face of rising laxity, insisted on confession, repentance, and right disposition.
– John XXIII’s enthusiastic praise of endless lines for Communion, without one mention of the need for worthy reception, repentance, or doctrinal faith, promotes a purely quantitative Eucharistic piety in which the Body of the Lord becomes a badge of belonging rather than the terror and sweetness of the Lamb slain.
4. Silence about judgment, Hell, and the supernatural stakes:
– There is no mention of final judgment, Heaven, Hell, necessity of sanctifying grace, mortal sin, or the Four Last Things.
– An event centered objectively on the Sacrifice of Christ and His Real Presence is described as if its essence were public harmony, pleasant memories, and emotional uplift.
– *Silentium de novissimis gravissimum crimen est* (silence about the last things is a most grave crime), especially when wielded by one claiming to be Supreme Pastor.
In sum, the letter is Eucharistic in vocabulary, modernist in substance: a sacrificial Mystery is converted into a religious-social catalyst for humanistic goals.
Symptom of a System: Liturgical Globalism and the Conciliar Mentality
The document must be read as a piece within a larger mosaic.
1. The Eucharistic Congress as prototype of conciliar pseudo-liturgies:
– Vast crowds.
– Vernacularity and spectacular orchestration.
– Media transmission.
– Emphasis on active, visible participation.
– Fusion of civil, ecclesiastical, and mass-cultural elements.
All this anticipates the subsequent desecration of the Most Holy Sacrifice in the neo-church, where external participation usurps interior adoration, and the altar becomes a stage.
2. The “orbis Statio” without the orbis Christianus:
– John XXIII calls Munich a kind of world station, yet without demanding that this world submit to the one true Faith.
– The Catholic idea of *statio orbis* presupposes unity of Faith under Christ the King, as defined and guarded by the true Magisterium.
– Here, it is a proto-ecumenical, sentimental vision: all peoples redeemed in Blood, all invited to concord, without doctrinal separation from error.
3. Institutional Modernism in action:
– Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi condemned the modernist tendency to:
– reduce dogma to religious experience,
– speak ambiguously,
– accommodate the Faith to the modern world,
– displace divine revelation with historical-pastoral narratives.
– This letter exemplifies that condemned methodology:
– Instead of dogmatic clarity: emotive recollection.
– Instead of denunciation of error: diplomatic praise.
– Instead of asserting the unique salvific necessity of the Church: general Christian-theological phraseology open to development into later false ecumenism and religious liberty.
Modernism rarely begins with explicit denials; it begins with studied silences and displacements. Here, the Eucharistic lexicon remains, but its dogmatic heart is surgically removed.
Juxtaposition with Pre-1958 Magisterium: An Irreconcilable Divergence
To expose fully the rupture, one must juxtapose this text with authoritative teaching prior to 1958.
1. Against liberal naturalism:
– The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX) condemns:
– the subordination of the Church to civil power (19–21, 24),
– the separation of Church and State (55),
– the relativization of the Catholic religion in public life (77–79),
– reconciliation of Catholicism with liberalism and modern civilization (80).
– Yet this letter’s warm endorsement of state collaboration and its refusal to recall the state’s duty to Christ reveal a practical acceptance of that very liberal order. It is not the voice of Pius IX asserting rights of the Church; it is the voice of a functionary grateful for hospitality.
2. Against the denial of Christ’s social reign:
– Pius XI in Quas Primas declares that public life cannot be healed except by restoring the reign of Christ; he explicitly rebukes laicism and equating Catholicism with false religions.
– John XXIII’s letter, in context of a massive international event, would be the perfect place to reaffirm these principles. He does not. Instead, he speaks in anodyne terms of “peace for nations,” divorced from the non-negotiable obligation to recognize Christ the King.
– This disjunction is not accidental; it is part of the progressive erasure of the doctrine of the Social Kingship from public ecclesiastical discourse that culminated in the conciliar cult of religious liberty.
3. Against modernist exegesis and doctrinal evolution:
– Lamentabili and Pascendi condemn the reduction of dogma to subjective experience and historical conditioning.
– The prospect of a Eucharistic congress framed primarily as experiential spectacle and human solidarity, rather than as reaffirmation of immutable dogma and call to conversion, is a practical application of what those documents anathematized.
– That this comes from the pen of John XXIII only confirms that the conciliar sect’s line of antipopes stands outside the Tradition they pretend to continue.
The conclusion is doctrinally unavoidable: the mentality manifested in this document cannot be reconciled with the principles enshrined by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII. *Non est eadem fides, non est idem spiritus* (it is not the same faith, it is not the same spirit).
The Cult of the Masses: Quantity Against Truth and Holiness
A central perversion in the letter is the glorification of numbers:
– Joy in the immense crowds.
– Delight that people “did not cease” to approach Communion.
– Satisfaction in the aesthetic of thousands singing in unison.
But:
– No mention of whether they believe integrally what the Church teaches.
– No mention of whether they confess their sins, avoid sacrilege, or renounce condemned errors.
– No mention of whether the public authorities and societies represented are living according to the law of Christ.
This is the embryo of the later conciliar obsession with “people of God,” “participation,” and statistics of attendance, while doctrine, morals, and sacramental validity collapse.
Authentic Catholic teaching, before 1958, is the opposite:
– Better a few faithful in the state of grace than crowds of sacrilegious communicants.
– Better a persecuted Church confessing Christ’s Kingship than a respected “church” flattering governments in exchange for platforms and media coverage.
– Better silence and adoration before the tabernacle than the choreography of televised mega-ceremonies.
John XXIII’s letter sings the hymn of the masses. Catholic Tradition sings the hymn of the saints.
Instrumentalizing the Eucharist for Political Humanism
While veiled in pious Latin, the functional theology of this letter is utilitarian:
– The Eucharistic Congress is praised as generating bonds between peoples and peace among nations.
– Christ is presented as providing “suave ac salutiferum alimentum” (sweet and salutary nourishment) to support this horizontal concord.
What is missing is decisive:
– No call to the conversion of non-Catholics.
– No warning against condemned sects, freemasonry, socialism, or liberalism, even though Pius IX and Leo XIII explicitly link these forces to war against the Church and society.
– No affirmation of the necessity of the Catholic Church as the only ark of salvation (against Syllabus error 18).
– No reminder that states and peoples which reject Christ’s law will face His judgment.
Thus, the Eucharist is tacitly subordinated to an internationalist peace project—a sacralized humanitarianism. This is theological perversion: turning God into the chaplain of the new world order.
Ecclesial Self-Exposure: A Letter as Evidence of Illegitimacy
Measured according to the doctrine summarized in the provided sources:
– Pius IX’s Syllabus unmasks the attempt to reconcile the Church with liberal naturalism and religious indifferentism.
– Lamentabili and Pascendi condemn the modernist tactics of historical-pastoral shifts, emotional religiosity, and silence about dogma.
– Quas Primas insists on the public, juridical reign of Christ over individuals and states as the only foundation of true peace.
This letter:
– Embraces the language of liberal respectability.
– Omits the hard, salvific demands of the Faith.
– Displays a cult of event, media, and governmental partnership alien to the spirit of the perennial Magisterium.
Such a document is not a harmless formality. It is a self-indictment: a public manifestation of a different religion, already metastasizing under John XXIII and soon to blossom fully in the conciliar and post-conciliar abomination of desolation—the paramasonic structure that occupies the temples and calls its humanistic festivals “Eucharistic.”
When one claiming the papal office publicly and systematically prefers horizontal spectacle, avoids doctrinal clarity, and fraternizes with liberal powers without asserting Christ’s sovereign rights, he shows himself not as guardian of the deposit of faith, but as a promoter of that very modernism the true Church has anathematized.
Conclusion: Beneath Ceremony, the Program of Apostasy
Behind the gentle Latin courtesies of this letter stands a fundamental betrayal:
– The Eucharist is praised, but not confessed as Sacrifice and dread Mystery demanding conversion and reparation.
– The crowds are flattered, but not warned.
– Governments are thanked, but not summoned to submit to Christ the King.
– Peace is invoked, but detached from Truth.
– Media spectacle is embraced, not feared as a profanation of the Holy.
In such texts the conciliar sect reveals itself: not in open denial, but in systematic, poisonous omission; not in direct blasphemy, but in the subtle enthronement of man, masses, and modern civilization at the center of what once was Catholic worship.
Where the true Church speaks with the voice of the Crucified King and His unchanging doctrine, this letter speaks with the smooth voice of accommodation. It is not an accident. It is a symptom of a counterfeit hierarchy and a counterfeit religion that, under pretense of honoring the Eucharist, empties it of its Catholic meaning to make it an instrument of globalist, humanistic concord without conversion.
Source:
Gratulationis ad Iosephum tit. S. Mariae novae presb. Cardinalem Wendel, Archiepiscopum monacensem et frisingensem, ob Eucharisticum ex omnibus nationibus Conventum Monachii celebratum (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025