Marian Congress as Propaganda: John XXIII’s Humanitarian Pacifism against Christ the King
This Latin letter of John XXIII, dated 21 October 1960 and addressed to Cardinal Marcello Mimmi as his legate to a Marian Congress in Buenos Aires, offers praise for the planned gathering, extols Marian devotion, and develops a programmatic discourse on “peace,” “social justice,” and “progress” to be fostered under Mary’s patronage, especially in the context of the “social question” in Latin America. Beneath its pious veneer, it instrumentalizes Marian language in order to promote an irenic, naturalistic, and politically adaptable religion in which Christ’s kingship, the Church’s exclusive salvific claims, and the condemnation of liberal and masonic errors are methodically muted, displaced, and prepared for dissolution.
Elevation of an Antipontiff as Marian Herald: Illegitimate Authority, Illegitimate Mission
We are confronted here not with a neutral episcopal circular, but with a programmatic act of the first usurper of the conciliar line, John XXIII, who assumes to speak in the name of the Church to the nations of the Americas on the eve of the conciliar revolution. The entire text must be read as a strategic step in the construction of the Ecclesia nova, the neo-church which will shortly codify its apostasy at Vatican II.
Key elements of this usurped authority are already visible:
– John XXIII presumes universal jurisdiction while preparing to overturn, in practice, the doctrinal intransigence of his true predecessors.
– He sends a legate not to defend integram fidem (the integral faith), but to preside over a Marian congress recast as an engine of socio-political pacification, where supernatural truth is subordinated to “peace” and “order” in the natural sense.
– The Marian symbolism is conscripted into a humanitarian and diplomatic project, not into the proclamation of the exclusive reign of Christ as defined by the authentic Magisterium, for instance by Pius XI in Quas primas, where the Pope teaches that true peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ, and that states are bound to publicly recognize His sovereignty.
Thus from the outset we are dealing with an act devoid of true pontifical authority and imbued instead with the ideological profile of the conciliar sect: the cult of dialogue, the horizontalization of Marian devotion, the evasion of the Church’s militant and doctrinal character, and a carefully coded rapprochement with the liberal and masonic conception of society anathematized by Pius IX in the Syllabus Errorum.
Misappropriation of Marian Devotion for a Naturalistic Social Program
John XXIII describes the Buenos Aires gathering as a Marian congress promising “abundant fruits” because of its zealous preparation. But what “fruits” does he promote? The letter progressively empties Marian devotion of its properly supernatural and doctrinal content and refits it as a spiritual engine for temporal agendas.
He writes (translation first, original second):
Let the participants, by prayer, meditation, and conduct of life, strive to resist the harms to religion and to the public welfare.
Praegravia sane et summi momenti sunt argumenta precibus, meditatione, actione vitae exsolvenda iis, qui in urbe Argentinae Nationis capite exspectatum Conventum agent, ut religionis et publicae salutis nocumentis valide obsistatur.
This apparently harmless formulation is the first index of subversion:
– “Religion” and “public welfare” are placed side by side as co-referential goods, with no explicit subordination of temporal society to the supernatural end of the Church.
– There is no assertion that “public welfare” is objectively dependent upon the public, juridical submission of states to Christ the King and to the one true Church, as Pius XI solemnly insists in Quas primas and as Pius IX defends against liberalism.
– The language is meticulously vague: “harms to religion” and “harms to public welfare” are not identified with concrete condemned errors—Socialism, laicism, religious indifferentism, masonic sects—as done unambiguously by true popes. Instead, we have a generic rhetoric compatible with pluralist democracies and with the very systems Pius IX and Leo XIII condemned.
Marian devotion is then mobilized as a flexible symbol:
– Mary is described as “the surest ground of our trust” and guarantor of victories of “spotless purity,” but there is no connection made to her role as destroyer of all heresies, defender of the one Catholic faith, and terror of demons active in revolutionary ideologies and false religions.
– There is no exhortation to restore Catholic confessional states, no call to reject condemned liberal or socialist principles. The Marian symbol is allowed to hover above competing ideologies, consoling all, demanding from none the submission of public order to Christ’s law.
This is not accidental silence; it is the methodical reengineering of Marian piety into a unifying, non-dogmatic, inter-class and soon interreligious emblem. It is the first taste of the conciliar “Marianism without teeth,” which prepares the faithful to accept a Church dissolved into a humanitarian agency. Lex orandi, lex credendi: if Mary is no longer heralded as triumphant Queen of the militantly Catholic order, she becomes the patroness of a universalist, pacifist civil religion.
Reduction of Peace to Humanitarian Order: Betrayal of Quas Primas and the Syllabus
Central in this letter is John XXIII’s discourse on peace. He devotes considerable space to it, and here the contrast with pre-1958 doctrine becomes glaring.
He recalls the angelic hymn at Bethlehem and Christ’s farewell gift of peace, and then declares that peace—understood as tranquility of order—is the supreme happiness of states. He ties peace to truth, justice, charity, devotion to God, moral integrity, social justice, and fair relations between employers and workers. On the surface this echoes traditional teaching; in substance it diverges in two decisive ways.
1. Omission of the Kingship of Christ and the Rights of the Church
Not once does he affirm that:
– Peace is impossible where the true religion is not publicly professed and the Church is not recognized as having rights anterior and superior to the State.
– Religious indifferentism and separation of Church and State are grave violations of divine and natural law (condemned explicitly in the Syllabus, propositions 15, 55, 77-80).
– Modern liberal “rights” that deny Christ’s sovereignty are incompatible with true peace.
Instead, peace is grounded in a list of virtues and social measures that can be—and in the conciliar mindset will be—interpreted within a religiously neutral state. This is the nascent ius humanum sine Christo, the cult of “human dignity” and “social justice” detached from Christ the King and the infallible Magisterium.
By contrast, Pius XI in Quas primas insists that:
– Peace and order among nations require the recognition of Christ’s royal rights, both private and public.
– Public institutions and laws must conform to His commandments.
– The calamities of modern times stem precisely from the refusal of individuals and states to recognize Christ’s reign.
John XXIII carefully avoids this doctrinal cornerstone. His “peace” discourse is compatible with the very liberal order condemned by his predecessors. This is not development; it is betrayal.
2. Naturalistic Social Program Masquerading as Catholic Doctrine
The letter’s catalogue—social justice, proper labor relations, progress of arts and sciences—is aligned with prior papal social teaching only insofar as it can be disconnected from its theological foundation. But here, again, what is missing is decisive:
– No denunciation of the anti-Christian nature of socialist and communist systems that ravaged Latin America and which Pius XI condemned in Divini Redemptoris.
– No condemnation of anti-clerical liberal elites, masonic lodges, or revolutionary movements exposed by Pius IX and Leo XIII.
– No insistence that the “social question” cannot be solved apart from the sacramental life, confession of the true faith, and subjection of civil law to divine law.
Instead, the text advances a soft, humanistic consensus, where Marian fervor and Catholic vocabulary serve as spiritual varnish on a horizontal, man-centered agenda. This is precisely the drift condemned in principle by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis and Lamentabili sane exitu, where the dissolution of dogma into moral and social activism is recognized as the core of Modernism.
Linguistic Symptoms of Apostasy: Pious Ambiguity and Bureaucratic Pacification
The rhetoric of the letter is a textbook of pre-conciliar Modernist style: formally orthodox phrases envelop a systematic ambiguity designed to avoid conflict with the modern world.
Observe the features:
– Pervasive use of generalities: “religion,” “public welfare,” “social question,” “progress of disciplines and arts,” “benefit of society,” none concretely anchored in the rights of the Catholic Church as the one ark of salvation.
– The language of duty is shifted from confession of Catholic dogma to promotion of peace and social concord. References to “children of the Church” as “salt of the earth” (Mt 5:13) are immediately funneled into civic activism, not into defense of revealed truth against error.
– Marian titles are employed but selectively: Mary as “Mother of fair love, of fear, of knowledge, of holy hope,” as protector and mediatrix of heavenly gifts. True; yet her mission as defender of the deposit of faith against heresies and as Queen who commands the submission of nations is passed over in silence.
In traditional papal texts, clarity and combativeness mark authentic teaching: Pius IX enumerates and condemns liberal propositions one by one; St. Pius X identifies and anathematizes Modernist theses point by point; Pius XI confronts laicized states and calls them to penance. Here, John XXIII chooses a phraseology that can be applauded by freemasons, secular democrats, and pluralist elites. Ambiguity is the method; pacification of conflict with the world is the goal.
Verba docent, sed etiam tacentia damnant (words teach, but silences condemn). The carefully curated omissions condemn this text more loudly than its pious formulas excuse it.
Silence on the Supernatural Order: No Call to Conversion, No Threat of Judgement
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the gravest scandal in this letter is its almost total silence regarding the central supernatural realities that constitute the Church’s mandate:
– No call to conversion of sinners to the one true faith.
– No reference to the necessity of living and dying in the state of grace for eternal salvation.
– No reminder of the Four Last Things: death, judgment, hell, heaven.
– No insistence on the Most Holy Sacrifice as the heart of Christian life and the font of grace without which social efforts are sterile.
– No mention of the objective duty of nations to recognize and publicly honor Christ and His Church.
– No warning against condemned doctrines and sects (liberalism, socialism, communism, Freemasonry) deeply operative in the Americas.
Instead, the faithful are mobilized for an indistinct “peace” secured by natural virtues, social justice, devotion to Mary, and generic piety. This is precisely the “religion of man” that will soon explode in the conciliar documents and post-conciliar practice.
A Marian congress that does not climax in an explicit call for the social and political submission of nations to Christ the King, does not proclaim the exclusive salvific mission of the Catholic Church, and does not warn against the eternal consequences of unbelief and mortal sin is not Catholic in the traditional sense. It is an instrument of anesthesia—emotionally devout, doctrinally disarmed.
The Social Question without Christ the King: A Conciliar Parody of Catholic Social Doctrine
John XXIII, addressing especially Latin America, emphasizes the “social question,” urging that it be solved according to “principles of Christian social doctrine.” This seems orthodox; but again the omissions pervert the substance.
He proposes that these principles regulate temporal goods with equity while not neglecting the “higher goods” of soul and eternal life. What is missing?
– The unambiguous teaching that any social order which denies the kingship of Christ and the rights of His Church is unjust, however egalitarian or prosperous.
– The insistence that class conflict, exploitation, and revolutionary agitation are often driven by anti-Christian ideologies and sects that must be condemned, not dialogued with.
– The clear assertion that the remedy is not merely “equitable distribution” or “social justice” in a democratic sense, but conversion of individuals and institutions to the law of Christ.
By evacuating the political and juridical consequences of these “principles,” John XXIII effectively rebrands Catholic social doctrine as a moral inspiration compatible with pluralist, religiously neutral regimes. This is already the logic that will culminate in the conciliar teaching on religious liberty and in the rejection of the confessional State—positions explicitly condemned in the Syllabus.
Ubi Christus Rex negatur, ibi socialis doctrina corrumpta est (where Christ the King is denied, there social doctrine is corrupted). This letter is an early template of that corruption.
Mary as Totemic Patroness of the Neo-Church: From Destroyer of Heresies to Emblem of Consensus
Particularly insidious is the manner in which the powerful Marian imagery of tradition is selectively used to serve a new agenda.
John XXIII presents Mary as:
– Helper and mediatrix, “invincible protection, impregnable wall.”
– The one in whom is “all hope of life and virtue.”
– The model whose virtues the faithful must imitate.
But to what end? Not to defend the Catholic confessional order, not to resist liberal and masonic infiltration, not to uphold the condemnations of modernist theology—but to sustain a non-conflictual, integrative project of social peace.
Omitted are the themes inseparable from traditional Mariology:
– Mary as terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata (terrible as an army set in array), the one who crushes all heresies and errors. This would unmask the conciliar project itself.
– Mary as Queen over Catholic nations, demanding obedience to her Son’s law in public and private life.
– Mary as the one who leads the faithful to the Cross, to penance, to sacramental fidelity, to separation from the world, not to accommodation with it.
The Marian congress thus becomes a laboratory of the new religion: Marian in sentiment, modernist and naturalist in function. Mary is transformed into the smiling icon of the Church of the New Advent, emptied of militant doctrinal content and made the patroness of a planetary humanitarianism. This is blasphemous instrumentalization disguised as devotion.
Conciliar Fruits in Embryo: How This Letter Prefigures the Systemic Apostasy
This short letter, read in the light of the pre-1958 Magisterium and the subsequent conciliar collapse, reveals itself as a concentrated seed of the later apostasy. Its symptomatic elements are:
1. Substitution of integral doctrine with pastoral humanitarianism.
– Catholic social and Marian teaching is reduced to encouragements for peace, justice, and progress without hard doctrinal edges.
2. Methodical ambiguity enabling liberal interpretation.
– Every assertion is framed so it can be harmonized with religious pluralism and laicism, in direct contradiction to the constant teaching reasserted by Pius IX and St. Pius X.
3. Silence regarding the rights of Christ the King and His Church.
– Precisely the points under violent attack by modern states and sects are left unspoken, betraying the office charged to defend them.
4. Politicization of Marian devotion.
– Mary is invoked, not to command conversion and submission to her Son’s rule, but to bless a humanistic peace process in Latin America.
5. Prefiguration of Vatican II rhetoric.
– The vocabulary, tone, priorities, and omissions anticipate the conciliar texts on the Church in the modern world, religious liberty, and ecumenism, which systematize the very errors condemned in Lamentabili and the Syllabus.
From the perspective of the unchanging Catholic theology prior to 1958, such a letter cannot be received as a legitimate exercise of Petrine authority; it is instead a public document of a paramasonic structure infiltrating and occupying Catholic institutions. Far from strengthening the faithful against the enemies of the Church, it disarms them and seduces them into a new religion in which peace is sought without the Cross, justice without dogma, and Marian devotion without obedience to Christ the King.
In this light, the Buenos Aires Marian Congress of 1960, as framed by John XXIII, emerges not as an act of Catholic renewal, but as an instrument of transition from the Church of Christ to the Church of Man—an early cry not of “Adveniat regnum tuum” in its true sense, but of the neo-church’s coming “New Advent,” alien to the deposit of faith and condemned in advance by the very popes whose names it dares to invoke.
Source:
Libenter mox – Ad Marcellum S. R. E. Cardinalem Mimmi, Episcopum sarinensem et mandelensem ac Sacrae Congregationis Consistorialis a secretis, quem Legatum mittit ad Marialem Conventum in urbe Bono Aë… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025