This Latin letter of John XXIII, addressed to Hyginus Anglés on the 50th anniversary of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, is an ornate panegyric: it praises the Institute as heir and guardian of sacred music, recalls Pius X’s reform and the chirograph “Tra le sollecitudini,” extols Gregorian chant, polyphony, Latin in the solemn liturgy, scholae cantorum, and even mentions adapting music in mission territories by elevating indigenous melodies for Catholic worship; the whole text wraps itself in traditional terminology to present the Institute as exemplary servant of divine worship under the aegis of the conciliar renovator.
In reality this is a calculated piece of liturgical politics, weaponizing the venerable language of Pius X in order to anesthetize resistance and prepare the desecration of the Most Holy Sacrifice through the conciliar revolution.
Iucunda laudatio: Liturgical Cosmetics for the Conciliar Revolution
Antipapalist Premise: John XXIII as Architect of Subversion
From the perspective of the integral Catholic faith, the fundamental fact cannot be politely veiled: John XXIII inaugurates the line of usurpers who, beginning in 1958, have occupied the Roman See and used its external apparatus to introduce a new religion. This letter, dated 8 December 1961—on the vigil of the “Council” he convoked—is not an innocuous tribute to sacred music; it is part of a broader strategy to place traditional symbols in the service of a program condemned by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
Before descending to the details, note the irony:
– The same man who launches the aggiornamento that will demolish the public reign of Christ the King so solemnly reasserted by Pius XI in Quas primas surrounds himself here with references to Latin, Gregorian chant, and the decrees of Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– The same current that will generate the neo-rite of 1969, the cult of man, false ecumenism, and liturgical anarchy, here cloaks itself in traditional liturgical aesthetics.
This duplicity—attachment in words, revolution in deeds—is precisely the method already anathematized by St. Pius X when he unmasks Modernists as those who hide their novelties beneath orthodox vocabulary, changing the meaning while conserving the shell (Pascendi Dominici gregis, condemned propositions in Lamentabili sane exitu).
Factual Level: Strategic Selectivity and the Manipulation of Continuity
1. John XXIII presents the Pontifical Institute as organic fruit of the reform of Pius X:
“Sanctus Decessor Noster Pius X… provide decrevit, ut Romae istud constitueretur musicae sacrae celsi ordinis Magisterium.”
English: “Our holy Predecessor Pius X… wisely decreed that in Rome there should be established this high school of sacred music.”
– The statement of historical connection is externally correct: the Institute is linked to Pius X’s program. But here that fact is used to lend John XXIII’s own pontificate a borrowed orthodoxy.
– At the moment of writing (1961), he is already steering toward a council whose preparatory schemas—initially rooted in traditional doctrine—he will allow to be overthrown and replaced by texts saturated with precisely those tendencies condemned by Pius IX and Pius X: religious liberty, ecumenism, collegial democratization, and liturgical “active participation” in a new sense.
2. He invokes Pius XI and Pius XII as if he were the faithful continuator:
“Fel. rec. Decessores Nostri Pius XI… Pius XII… complura praescripserunt, quae attente considerari semper oportet…”
– Factually, these predecessors legislated strongly to safeguard sacred music (e.g., Pius XI Divini cultus sanctitatem, Pius XII Musicae sacrae disciplina).
– What is suppressed is the impending contradiction: the very circles empowered under John XXIII and his successors will trample those norms, empty Gregorian chant from parish life, and enthrone vernacular noise and theatrics.
3. The letter praises:
– Latin as “venerandus et augustus sermo” indissolubly linked to Roman liturgical song.
– Gregorian chant as foundation of sacred music.
– Polyphony of the 15th and 16th centuries.
– Scholae cantorum in cathedrals, monasteries, parishes, seminaries.
All are, in themselves, elements of Catholic tradition. But they are presented here in isolation from doctrinal context, as aesthetic treasures within a project that will shortly instrumentalize, relativize, or marginalize them.
This is the first mark of the conciliar sect: to exhibit fragments of the past as museum pieces while changing the substance they once expressed.
Linguistic Level: Sweetened Rhetoric as Veil for Revolutionary Intent
The tone is suavely paternal, celebratory, drenched in devout vocabulary:
– Continuous use of “iucunda,” “suave solacium,” “splendorem,” “decorum.”
– Emphasis on “laudatio,” “gratulatio,” “benevolentia,” “oblectamentum.”
– No hint of crisis, no mention of abuses, no denunciation of profanation or doctrinal confusion.
Contrast this with the vigilance of pre-1958 Popes:
– Pius X: severe, surgical exposure of Modernism as “synthesis of all heresies.”
– Pius XI and Pius XII: clear denunciations of laicism, moral corruption, false ideas of freedom, and liturgical abuses.
– Pius IX in the Syllabus Errorum: precise rejection of indifferentism, religious liberty, subordination of Church to State, false progress.
John XXIII’s vocabulary is that of the nascent “Church of the New Advent”: sentimental, conciliatory, allergic to condemnation. The text is bureaucratically precise where it deals with structures, but insipid where the integrity of worship is at stake.
Silentium dogmaticum (dogmatic silence) is itself a symptom: where previous Popes warned against secret societies, naturalism, and attacks on the Sacrifice of the altar, John XXIII offers untroubled compliments. In 1961, amidst rampant secularization and infiltration—denounced already by Pius IX and Pius X—he refuses to name the enemy. This refusal is not neutral; it is complicity.
Theological Level: Using Sacred Music to Mask the Coming Assault on the Sacrifice
Under unchanging Catholic doctrine, sacred music is not decorative but an extension of the worship owed to God in the Sacrifice of the altar:
– Pius X: sacred music must possess sanctity, goodness of form, universality, and is ordered to the liturgy as pars integrans (integral part), supporting the propitiatory Sacrifice and the priestly action.
– Pius XI in Quas primas: true peace and order flow only from the social kingship of Christ, publicly acknowledged in worship and law.
– The Council of Trent: anathematizes denial of the propitiatory character of the Mass; requires that external rites safeguard the dogma they express.
Measured against this doctrine, John XXIII’s letter is theologically defective in three crucial respects:
1. Omission of the propitiatory Sacrifice:
– He speaks of “divine worship,” “liturgical progress,” “formation of students,” “spiritual fruits,” but he does not once clearly confess the Mass as the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary offered for the living and the dead.
– Sacred music is praised for “splendor” and “decorum,” but its intrinsic relation to the Sacrifice of the Cross and the dogma of Transubstantiation is left in the shadows.
Silence on the Sacrifice, where it should be explicit, prefigures the post-1960s reduction of the Mass to a communal meal or assembly.
2. Naturalization of liturgical aims:
– When he mentions liturgical catechesis and vernacular devotional songs, the emphasis is on intelligibility, participation, and “spiritual utility” in vague terms.
– Omitted are:
– The necessity of the state of grace for fruitful participation.
– The danger of sacrilege and profanation.
– The Four Last Things, the reality of judgment, hell, and the need for propitiation.
This omission exemplifies the mentality condemned by Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi: making religion primarily a matter of consciousness, pedagogy, and community resonance, rather than supernatural submission to revealed dogma and the objective Sacrifice.
3. Ambiguous praise for adaptation in mission territories:
John XXIII applauds the establishment of a department for music in mission lands, praising efforts to:
“colligere, polire et in catholicae religionis usum convertere”
English: “collect, refine and convert to the use of the Catholic religion” the melodies of peoples evangelized.
In principle, the Church has always elevated what is true and good in local cultures, subject to strict doctrinal and liturgical criteria. However, in the conciliar context, this language functions as a doorway for syncretistic “inculturation”:
– Instead of Gregorian chant as regula, local elements become experimental vehicles, often emptied of doctrinal rigor.
– The subsequent history of “inculturation” under the conciliar sect vindicates this reading: dances, pagan rhythms, theatrics—all the fruits of a principle detached from the guardianship of immutable doctrine.
Thus, the theological core of this letter is not the defense of Catholic worship, but the reorientation of sacred music into an instrument of anthropocentric liturgical reform.
Symptomatic Level: Herald of the Conciliar Sect’s Liturgical Program
To see the full bankruptcy of the attitudes revealed here, one must read this text as a symptom of a larger pathology.
1. Simulation of continuity:
John XXIII carefully cites:
– Pius X: “Tra le sollecitudini”
– Pius XI: Divini cultus sanctitatem
– Pius XII: Musicae sacrae disciplina
– 1958 Instruction on sacred music and liturgy
He thereby suggests an unbroken line; yet he is about to summon a Council which will:
– Refuse to condemn Communism clearly.
– Undermine the public kingship of Christ by teaching religious liberty as a civil right, in direct opposition to the Syllabus, Quanta cura, and Quas primas.
– Pave the way for a fabricated “new order of Mass” (Novus Ordo), which de facto dethrones Gregorian chant, marginalizes Latin, and encourages profane styles.
This is precisely the tactic of Modernism delineated by St. Pius X: use conservative language to push liberal practice; pretend development while effecting rupture; speak of tradition while eroding it from within.
2. Absence of combat against the real enemies:
Pre-1958 Popes constantly warned:
– Against Freemasonry and secret societies orchestrating the war on the Church (Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X).
– Against socialism, laicism, secular schooling, separation of Church and State, as condemned in the Syllabus.
– Against rationalism and biblical criticism undermining Revelation.
In 1961, these threats are more advanced than ever—inside academia, seminaries, and even Roman dicasteries. Yet in this letter:
– No denunciation of secular infiltration.
– No warning against liturgical profanation.
– No assertion of the Church’s exclusive rights over worship and doctrine against the modern State.
Silence where there must be condemnation is not pastoral gentleness; it is abandonment of duty and tacit blessing of apostasy.
3. Horizontalization of worship:
The repeated emphasis on:
– “participation of the faithful” as collective singing.
– “popular chant” as voice of unity.
– The image of the assembly as “vox una unius caritatis.”
Without explicit subordination of all this to the priestly Sacrifice and the objective act of Christ the High Priest, this rhetoric becomes the seed of the later cult of the assembly—the congregation as protagonist, the “presider” as animator, music as emotive glue.
The Council of Trent’s anathemas against those who say that Mass is only praise, thanksgiving, commemoration, or communal feast, and not propitiatory Sacrifice, are effectively ignored in favor of a vocabulary that easily merges into Protestantized liturgy.
4. Replacement of supernatural militancy with optimistic irenicism:
Where St. Pius X speaks of an internal sworn war against Modernists, John XXIII speaks of:
– “jucunda laudatio”
– “suave solacium”
– “benevolentia Nostra”
– No hint of the need to defend dogma and liturgy against wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Such optimism, detached from the hard reality of doctrinal combat, prepares the faithful to accept the betrayal that will soon follow under the same soft tone—first in liturgical experiments, then in ecumenical gestures, then in an entire doctrinal reorientation.
Contradiction with Pre-1958 Magisterium: Specific Points
To expose the depth of the divergence, let us juxtapose key elements of this letter with the binding pre-1958 teaching (presented here as doctrinal synthesis rather than uncertain quotations):
1. On the nature of authority:
– The pre-conciliar Popes insist that ecclesiastical authority exists to guard, not reinvent, the deposit of faith and the sacred rites received.
– John XXIII flatters an Institute not for resisting errors, but for fitting into his project of “liturgical renewal,” without warning against false innovations.
2. On the public reign of Christ:
– Pius XI in Quas primas teaches that true peace depends on public recognition of Christ’s Kingship in law and institutions, and condemns laicist apostasy.
– John XXIII situates sacred music and liturgy entirely within a saccharine intra-ecclesial circle, with no call to re-establish Christian social order; worship is de facto privatized and aestheticized.
3. On Modernism:
– St. Pius X, renewing Lamentabili and Pascendi, imposes excommunication on those who defend Modernist propositions; he unmasks those who use traditional terms while infusing them with new meanings.
– John XXIII, both here and in his broader gestures, studiously avoids this combative stance and instead adopts a posture of benevolent dialogue—even as he prepares to give a tribune to precisely those currents condemned as Modernist.
4. On sacred music’s doctrinal function:
– Traditional doctrine sees sacred music as guardian and expression of the lex orandi that safeguards lex credendi; therefore, musical forms that obscure dogma or foster irreverence are intrinsically inadmissible.
– John XXIII’s letter, while praising Gregorian chant, simultaneously opens doors for adaptation and “progress” without laying down clear dogmatic boundaries; this vacuum will be filled by the conciliar sect with folk, pop, theatrical liturgies that deform the faith of the people.
The Hidden Program: Gentle Words, Approaching Sacrilege
Seen in its historical context, this letter functions as:
– A reassurance to conservative circles: “Do not fear, the Council and our reforms only continue Pius X; we love Gregorian chant, we love Latin, we support scholae cantorum.”
– A coded signal to innovators: “We bless your presence in official structures; we will not condemn; we will frame everything as ‘progress’ in continuity with revered names.”
The fact that, in the following decade, the structures occupying the Vatican:
– Mutilate the Roman Rite.
– Replace Latin with chaotic vernaculars.
– Marginalize or eradicate Gregorian chant and polyphony.
– Promote anthropocentric songs and dances.
is not an accidental betrayal of John XXIII’s intention, but the logical unfolding of the principles he refused to combat and the optimism he canonized.
Thus, this “Iucunda laudatio” reveals not love for sacred tradition, but its exploitation: incense thrown in the eyes of the faithful while the altar is prepared for the abomination of desolation.
True Catholic Response: Guarding the Sacrifice, Not Applauding the Revolution
From the standpoint of unchanging Catholic doctrine:
– Sacred music must:
– Serve the objective, propitiatory Sacrifice.
– Express and protect the dogma of Transubstantiation.
– Be governed by the Church’s perennial norms (as in Pius X’s legislation), not by the caprices of modern taste or pseudo-pastoral experimentation.
– Any authority that:
– Praises tradition while facilitating its destruction,
– Refuses to condemn condemned errors,
– Uses venerable names to shelter a new religion,
forfeits moral credibility as guardian of the deposit.
The only coherent Catholic stance is:
– To reject the conciliar sect’s program and its liturgical products as contrary to the faith defined by Trent, Vatican I, and the pre-1958 Magisterium.
– To uphold the Most Holy Sacrifice and its authentic sacred music in fidelity to what the Church has always taught and practiced, independently of the corrosive novelties introduced by John XXIII and his successors in the neo-church.
John XXIII’s letter, read without illusion, is a document of transition: on its surface, it kisses the hands of Pius X; in its depths, it prepares to crucify his work.
Source:
Iucunda laudatio – Ad Hyginum Anglés Pamies, Protonotarium Apostolicum ad instar participantium ac Pontifici Instituti Musicae Sacrae Docendae Praesidem, decem exactis lustris ab eiusdem Instituti ort… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025