At the end of the 37th International Eucharistic Congress in Munich (1960), John XXIII sends a formal Latin letter to Josef Wendel, praising his organizational zeal, commending the harmonious collaboration of clergy, laity, and civil authorities, rejoicing in the public manifestation of “ancestral faith,” and expressing hope that this worldwide gathering at the Eucharistic Lord will foster mutual charity, unity among nations, and lasting peace, sealed by his “apostolic blessing.”
A Humanitarian Eucharist: John XXIII’s Munich Letter as Manifesto of the Neo-Church
Celebrating the Empty Shell: A Eucharist Without the Cross, Sin, or the Kingship of Christ
Already the surface of this text betrays its essence: a self-congratulatory diplomatic note from an antipope of the conciliar revolution, using the name of the Eucharist as a decor for a naturalistic, horizontal cult of “peoples” and “peace,” carefully stripped of the doctrinal content which the true Church has always bound inextricably to the Most Holy Sacrifice.
Key elements, factually and textually:
– John XXIII heaps praise on Wendel and his collaborators for the “magnificent liberality” and organization of the Congress in Munich, emphasizing logistics, hospitality, external splendour.
– He underlines his own “presence in spirit,” his continuous prayers, and above all the joy of seeing via television (he notes: “ab initio ad finem”) the final ceremonies.
– He rejoices at the “religious multitude” listening to his words and participating in pontifical rites, and in the long lines for “Eucharistic bread.”
– He thanks also the civil authorities, explicitly asking that his sentiments of satisfaction and delight be conveyed to them.
– He interprets the Congress as a kind of “station of the world” in Munich, hoping it will produce bonds of mutual charity and union, and that “serene and lasting peace” may shine upon all nations redeemed by Christ’s Blood.
– He concludes by wishing that the fruits of piety and religion in the archdiocese remain and increase, sealing all with his “Apostolic Blessing.”
On the level of pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, what is most striking is not what he says, but what he systematically refuses to say. The letter is a paradigm of the new religion: a Eucharist emptied of propitiation, a Church reduced to a sacral NGO for human fraternity, a papal voice that congratulates civil powers instead of warning them that they must submit publicly to the reign of Christ the King.
In other words: a piece of ceremonial prose which, beneath its pious Latin, witnesses the internal shift from the Catholic religion of Calvary to the conciliar cult of man.
Factual Level: The Congress as a Prototype of Neo-Church Spectacle
1. Television, crowds, choreography
John XXIII highlights with visible satisfaction that he followed the closing ceremonies “from beginning to end” via television. This fascination with the new medium and mass spectacle is not incidental; it signals a change of focus: from the invisible, sacrificial, supernatural reality of the altar to the visible, mediated, emotive image of a global religious event.
– The truly Catholic mind, formed by Trent and the Roman Catechism, first asks: Was the Most Holy Sacrifice offered according to Catholic doctrine? Was due emphasis placed on the propitiatory character of the Mass, the need for grace, repentance, and firm amendment? Were the faithful warned against unworthy Communion (1 Cor 11:27-29)?
– John XXIII is impressed instead by the crowd’s external “piety,” their listening to his words, their collective singing, their mass approach to “Eucharistic bread.” There is no mention of dispositions, confession, state of grace, fear of sacrilege.
Contrast with perennial doctrine:
– The Council of Trent solemnly anathematizes anyone who denies the Mass is a true propitiatory sacrifice offered for the living and the dead, or who reduces it to a mere commemoration or assembly meal. The letter’s vocabulary tends toward precisely that flattening. The Eucharist here is instrument of “unity” and “peace” between peoples, not primarily the unbloody Sacrifice satisfying divine justice.
– Pope Pius X’s struggle against Modernism (Lamentabili, Pascendi) condemned the reduction of the sacraments to symbolic communal expressions. Yet this letter, by its emphases, prepares exactly that reinterpretation: the Eucharist as a unifying sacred symbol for “all nations,” emptied of its dogmatic edge.
2. Courtship of civil power
John XXIII orders Wendel to convey his gratitude and delight to civil authorities. The tone is deferential, almost servile. Missing is any reminder that rulers, as Pius XI teaches in Quas primas, must publicly recognize the Kingship of Christ and shape laws according to His law, or they forfeit true legitimacy.
Pius XI: peace will not come until individuals and states recognize and submit to the reign of Christ the King. This is cited not as ornament but as judgment. Here, however, the Eucharistic Congress is praised as if a neutral religious-cultural success, without any demand that the hosting state confess the true Faith or reject religious indifferentism. The logic is inverted: instead of the state being called to homage before the altar, the “pope” flatters the state for facilitating his spectacle.
3. Silence about the crisis and infiltrations already denounced by true popes
By 1960, the advance of laicism, Freemasonry, socialism, indifferentism, condemned unsparingly in the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX and in numerous encyclicals, was plain. Pius IX explicitly identifies Masonic sects as instruments of the “synagogue of Satan,” undermining Church and Christian states. Pius X exposes Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies.”
This letter, written from within the very structures later used to promulgate the conciliar revolution, ignores entirely:
– the doctrinal dissolution in universities and seminaries;
– the work of secret societies and their program to neutralize the Church;
– the real enemies of Christ and His Church, external and internal.
Instead, it projects an image of serene triumph: all nations gathered, peaceful, harmonious, as if the world had already reconciled itself with Christ—without repentance, without conversion, without submission to dogma.
Linguistic Level: Soft Humanism and the Rhetoric of Harmless Piety
The rhetoric is revealing: ornate, blandly “spiritual,” utterly devoid of dogmatic precision.
Key features:
– Constant emphasis on “joy,” “delight,” “consolation,” “exemplum caritatis et concordiae” (example of charity and concord), “mutuae caritatis coniunctionis” (mutual bonds of charity).
– The Eucharist is framed as the centre of “peoples’ gathering,” “orbis Statio” (station of the world), fostering unity among nations.
– Absent: explicit mention of:
– the Real Presence defined dogmatically against Protestant errors;
– the propitiatory nature of the Sacrifice;
– sin, hell, judgment, the Four Last Things;
– the necessity of the one true Catholic Church for salvation;
– the duty to reject heresy, schism, indifferentism.
This is not an oversight; it is a stylistic manifestation of a new theology. What is unsaid is precisely what the modernist mentality wishes to hide, because the supernatural claims of the true Faith clash with its project of religious universalism.
Pius X, in condemning Modernist exegesis and theology, targeted the idea that dogma evolves to fit “modern conscience” and that the Church should refrain from imposing fixed doctrines. The language in this letter breathes that climate:
– No doctrinal definitions.
– No precise references to Trent or to anti-liberal encyclicals.
– Only soft formulas, elastic enough to include any post-confessional Christianity compatible with a pluralistic order.
The repeated joy over television transmission—“from beginning to end”—unintentionally displays the shift: from lex credendi (law of belief) to lex spectaculi (law of spectacle), from dogmatic clarity to media event.
Theological Level: The Eclipse of the Sacrifice and the Kingship of Christ
1. The Eucharist reduced to a sacrament of universal fraternity
Central theological distortions and omissions:
– The letter praises access to “Eucharistic bread” without warning of unworthy Communion. Yet the Apostle is explicit: those who eat and drink unworthily eat and drink judgment to themselves. Trent reaffirms this solemnly.
– The exclusive focus on affective “piety” and “unity” subordinates the objective nature of the sacrament to subjective experience and social symbolism.
Perennial doctrine:
– The Holy Mass is the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary, offered to adore God, thank Him, impetrate His graces, and propitiate for sins. Any Eucharistic congress, to be Catholic, must centre on these truths, not on self-congratulation and diplomatic niceties.
– The Eucharist is intimately bound to the visible unity of the Church: one faith, one hierarchy, one baptism. “Unity” without doctrinal identity is a lie.
The letter’s silence on the dogmatic exclusivity of the Catholic Church is therefore damning. It speaks to “all nations” and hopes for “peace” but does not demand that they accept the only Redeemer in the only Church. This aligns with condemned propositions:
– That man may find salvation in any religion (condemned by Pius IX).
– That the Church should accept religious pluralism and the reconciling with “modern civilization” as such (Syllabus, proposition 80 condemned).
2. No assertion of Christ’s public reign: betrayal of Quas Primas
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat laicism and to remind nations that true peace depends on submitting public life to Christ’s law. He teaches in substance:
– Only in the Kingdom of Christ can there be solid peace.
– Rulers must publicly honor Christ; laws, education, culture must conform to His commandments.
– The Church has the right and duty to demand freedom and primacy in matters of faith and morals.
John XXIII’s letter in 1960, on the eve of the so-called council that would enthrone religious liberty and human rights as supreme principles of the new order, speaks of peace among nations and mutual charity but:
– does not remind civil power of its duty to Christ the King;
– does not denounce secularism or Freemasonry;
– does not insist on the social kingship of Our Lord as condition for the hoped-for peace.
Instead, the whole tone is perfectly compatible with a naturalistic, Masonic “peace” based on human fraternity, not on conversion and submission to Christ and His Church.
In light of Quas Primas and the Syllabus, this is not merely incomplete; it is theologically perverse: it uses Eucharistic language to sanctify a peace different from that which Christ gives. It is precisely the counterfeit peace of the conciliar sect.
3. Absence of any sense of spiritual combat
Traditional papal language—Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII—is marked by:
– vigilance against error;
– warnings against false philosophies;
– denunciation of sects attacking Church and society;
– calls to penance, reparation, Marian devotion rightly understood, and defense of the faith.
This letter presents the world as if all were marching, singing, and communicating in peaceful devotion, with the “pope” smiling from the screen. There is no hint of:
– the danger of Modernism within the clergy;
– the crisis of vocations and discipline;
– the coming subversion of the liturgy;
– the wolf among the sheep.
Such irenic blindness cannot be reconciled with the divine office of guarding the deposit of faith. It is the blindness of one who is not a true shepherd.
Symptomatic Level: This Letter as Symptom and Instrument of the Conciliar Revolution
Seen within the trajectory of the structures which, after 1958, became the “Church of the New Advent,” this letter is not harmless; it is symptomatic.
1. A prototype of the conciliar style
Elements that later became characteristic of post-conciliarism are already fully present:
– Horizontalism: focus on peoples, nations, collaboration with secular authorities, dialogue via media.
– Sentimentalism: spiritualized compliments, optimistic phrases, no mention of hard truths.
– Doctrinal minimalism: dogma is presupposed rhetorically but never asserted sharply; key terms (sacrifice, sin, hell, error) are absent.
– Liturgical spectacle: televised ceremonies as a source of papal joy, foreshadowing the transformation of worship into a show for global consumption.
2. Preparation for religious liberty and false ecumenism
By praising a “world station” in Munich where nations gather around a Eucharistic symbol, without doctrinal demands, the letter prefigures the conciliar and post-conciliar dogma of:
– religious freedom in the liberal sense (condemned plainly in Syllabus 15–18, 77–80);
– ecumenism that treats non-Catholics as quasi-members sharing in worship or in its fruits without conversion.
Instead of recalling that extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church no salvation)—understood as always taught by the Fathers and Councils—the letter speaks as if Eucharistic externality sufficed to weld together “all peoples redeemed by the Blood of Christ,” without discussing whether they actually apply that redemption by faith, baptism, and adherence to the one Church.
3. Substitution of the true Church by the conciliar sect
The whole gesture reveals a mentality in which:
– The authority of the Roman Pontiff is exercised above all in distributing bland blessings on mass events, not in defining, condemning, or correcting.
– The goal of such events is to display a global religious identity compatible with modern democracies and pluralism.
– The integral faith prior to 1958—anti-liberal, anti-Modernist, clear—is silently bracketed away.
This is exactly how the “structures occupying the Vatican” proceed: they retain vestiges of ceremony and vocabulary while evacuating the substance. The letter is an early documentary trace of this usurpation.
The Gravity of Omissions: The Silent Apostasy Encoded in Polite Latin
Measured against the solemn warnings of the authentic Magisterium before 1958, the silences of this document become a formal accusation.
What is missing, and why it matters:
– No mention that:
– The Eucharistic Jesus is truly, really, substantially present—body, blood, soul, divinity—and must be adored as God.
– The Mass is primarily sacrifice, not assembly.
– Only those in the state of grace may approach; mortal sin requires sacramental confession.
– Non-Catholics cannot receive Communion; to admit or encourage them would be sacrilege.
– States must reject indifferentism, secularism, socialism, freemasonry, and conform their laws to Christ.
– The Church alone has divine authority to judge in faith and morals; civil power must submit in things pertaining to salvation.
The letter’s emphases—crowds, media, harmonious cooperation, a vague “peace”—align themselves instead with errors condemned in the Syllabus:
– The error that the Church should reconcile Herself with “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” understood as autonomous from God (condemned proposition 80).
– The error that every man can choose his religion by reason alone and find salvation therein (15–16).
– The error of separation of Church and state (55), and the notion that civil authority may mould religion according to its needs (44–48).
Thus, this text is not neutral; it is part of the gradual substitution of errors for truth, using the authority-image of Rome to legitimize the conciliar sect.
False Shepherd, Falsified Eucharist: A Final Judgment on the Munich Letter
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine taught consistently until 1958:
– A true Roman Pontiff, confronted with a massive Eucharistic congress, would:
– clearly reaffirm the dogmas of the Real Presence and of the propitiatory Sacrifice;
– warn against unworthy Communion and liturgical abuses;
– call rulers and nations to submit publicly to Christ the King;
– denounce Modernist trends, indifferentism, secularism;
– insist on conversion to the one true Church as condition for genuine peace.
Instead, in this letter:
– The Eucharist is instrumentalized as a sentimental and political symbol;
– The Mass is flattened into “Eucharistic bread” for crowds filmed and broadcast;
– The civil power is flattered, not called to penance;
– The supernatural order is subordinated tacitly to the naturalistic ideal of international harmony.
Therefore, judged by the very principles articulated by Pius IX in the Syllabus and by Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi, and by Pius XI in Quas Primas, this letter is:
– a witness to doctrinal minimalism and practical indifferentism;
– a liturgical-humanitarian manifesto of the emerging Church of the New Advent;
– an indictment of John XXIII as an antipope whose words and deeds serve not the Kingdom of Christ, but the program of the paramasonic, conciliatory, man-centred neo-church.
The pious Latin does not cleanse it. On the contrary, it aggravates the scandal: using the venerable forms of the past to smuggle in a theology and ecclesiology which the authentic Magisterium had already condemned.
Source:
Gratulationis – Epistula ad Iosephum tit. S. Mariae novae presb. Cardinalem Wendel, Archiepiscopum monacensem et frisingensem, ob Eucharisticum ex omnibus nationibus Conventum Monachii celebratum, d. … (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025