John XXIII’s letter “Mirabilis ille,” dated January 6, 1963, is a circular addressed “to all bishops of the Catholic Church and the other Fathers of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,” presenting the first session of Vatican II as a “wonderful” episcopal gathering, outlining the intersession work (January–September 1963), and exhorting bishops, clergy, laity, and even non-Catholic observers to collaborate spiritually, intellectually, and pastorally so that the Council might bear fruit for the Church and for the entire human family. It glorifies the conciliar process, emphasizes worldwide expectations, invites separated communities to watch with confidence, and projects Vatican II as an event ordered to peace, dialogue, and a broad, outward-facing aggiornamento of ecclesial life. In one sentence: this letter is the soft-toned but deadly ideological charter of a paramasonic, anthropocentric “council,” designed to dissolve the Catholic Church’s supernatural identity into a global, humanist project under the mask of pastoral optimism.
Mirabilis ille: Programmatic Manifesto of a Neo-Church Council
Foundational Fraud: A “Council” Against the Very Notion of a Catholic Council
From the first lines, the usurper John XXIII enthrones Vatican II as a sublime, unforgettable vision:
“That wonderful gathering of bishops… always stands before Our eyes.”
The rhetoric is revealing. The “wonder” is not the Most Holy Sacrifice, not the confession of the true faith, not the conversion of nations to the reign of Christ the King (Pius XI, Quas Primas), but the spectacle of an episcopal assembly. This sentimentalism immediately discloses the inversion: *concilium* replaces *fides*, procedure replaces doctrine, collective presence replaces the primacy of truth.
From the perspective of integral Catholic doctrine, a true Ecumenical Council is:
– convoked by a true Roman Pontiff,
– bound to guard, explain, and defend the already defined deposit (cf. Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus; the condemnation of doctrinal evolution in Lamentabili and Pascendi),
– subordinated entirely to the primacy of dogma and the supernatural end: the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
“Mirabilis ille” instead:
– exalts a self-referential “coetus episcoporum” as an object of contemplation;
– describes the Council primarily as a global event watched by “all men throughout the world,” shifting from the supernatural end (salus animarum) to universal human expectations;
– frames the intersession as an uninterrupted conciliar “continuation” in bureaucratic and psychological terms, not as perseverance in immutable doctrine.
Already here the poison is visible: *laetatur in imagine concilii, non in veritate fidei*. The Council is treated as an autonomous, quasi-permanent process – a political parliament of a universal religious NGO – rather than a solemn organ at the service of the unchanging magisterium.
Factual Level: Manufacturing an Ecclesial Parliament and a Permanent Process
1. John XXIII asserts that the months January–September 1963 are to be considered a “true continuation” of conciliar work, though the Fathers are dispersed.
– This constructs a permanent-process notion of council. Historically, councils are discrete, solemn sessions; their authority is in defined decrees, not in a nebulous atmosphere.
– The letter elevates commissions and intersessional “communication” almost to a magisterial locus. This is an ecclesiology of experts and technocratic structures, not of apostolic teaching.
2. The creation of a “Commission of Cardinal Fathers” to order conciliar business, placed above other commissions, formalizes a centralized steering group orchestrating outcomes:
– It is presented as merely coordinative.
– In practice, it announces a managed, pre-structured council, where results are curated, not organically drawn from tradition.
– This technocratic management anticipates precisely the manipulations documented by contemporaries: schemas faithful to traditional doctrine discarded, replaced with ambiguous texts engineered to admit modernist interpretations.
3. John XXIII idealizes worldwide interest, including that of non-Catholics, as a sign of grace, because “public opinion” turns toward the Council regarding peace and great human questions.
– This is a factual falsification of the Catholic optic: the sign of grace is not media fascination, but repentance, conversion, restoration of belief in dogma, the return to the sacraments.
– The Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX) explicitly condemns subordinating the Church to the tribunal of modern public opinion and liberal “civilisation” (prop. 80).
– John XXIII’s narrative inverts this: public opinion becomes a quasi-sacramental sign of conciliar legitimacy.
The result is a pseudo-council explained in sociological categories: visibility, world attention, dialogue, observers, psychological momentum. The supernatural dimension is invoked as decorative incense for a political-theological revolution.
Linguistic Level: Sentimentalism, Managerialism, and Ecumenist Flattery as Signals of Apostasy
The language of “Mirabilis ille” is theologically symptomatic.
1. Sentimental excess:
– “Mirabilis ille coetus… semper ante oculos Nostros.”
– “Spiritual love” linking him to the bishops.
– Sweet recollections of ceremonies, canonizations (already building the new pantheon of the neo-church).
This saccharine tone displaces the grave, combative, supernatural voice of pre-1958 magisterium. Compare:
– Pius X in Lamentabili/Pascendi: sharp condemnation of errors, clarity about Modernism as “synthesis of all heresies.”
– Pius XI in Quas Primas: uncompromising affirmation of the social kingship of Christ and denunciation of laicism.
John XXIII, in contrast, caresses the world, caresses the bishops, caresses “separated brethren.” No language of combat against heresy, no explicit denunciation of Freemasonry, naturalism, indifferentism, though these are precisely the forces Pius IX and Leo XIII identified as the sworn enemies of Christ’s reign and the Church.
2. Managerial-bureaucratic jargon:
– Detailed praise of commissions, sub-secretaries, “hidden but efficient” works.
– Continuous reference to organizational mechanisms, correspondence, auxiliary experts.
The text reads like the internal memo of an international organization. The visible stress falls on structure and process, not on *fides quae creditur*. This is not the tone of a Vicar of Christ calling a council to condemn the reigning errors; it is the tone of a secretary-general orchestrating a global conference.
3. Ecumenist flattery and universalist rhetoric:
The letter rejoices over invitations to non-Catholic “observers,” praising their respect and goodwill as signs of the Spirit, and slides seamlessly from the mission to Catholics to a universal outreach in which the Council is contemplated as hope for:
– “peace,”
– “questions of human society,”
– “the whole human family,”
with only thin, generic references to Christ. This language aligns with propositions condemned by the Syllabus:
– that the Church must accommodate “progress, liberalism and modern civilisation” (prop. 80),
– that the civil liberty of all cults and public manifestation of any opinions is innocuous (prop. 79),
– that the State and Church separation is acceptable (prop. 55).
The tone is irenic, horizontal, saturated with optimism about humanity; the vocabulary of sin, error, judgment, hell, the necessity of conversion to the one true Church is conspicuously absent. That silence is a confession.
Theological Level: Systematic Betrayal of Pre-1958 Catholic Doctrine
Beneath the courteous Latin flows a coherent theological deformation. The key axes:
1. Redefining Conciliar Authority and Episcopal Role
The letter insists:
– The Council receives general norms from the “Roman Pontiff,”
– The bishops, together with him, form a universal synod,
– The decrees must be proposed, shaped, and signed by both.
On the surface, this echoes Catholic teaching on councils. But in context:
– John XXIII emphasizes an apparent “co-responsibility” and “libertas” of the episcopal body that easily morphs (and historically did morph) into the conciliarist, democratized ecclesiology of Vatican II and the “collegiality” abused afterward.
– The traditional doctrine (Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus) teaches the Pope possesses full, supreme, immediate jurisdiction over the entire Church, and councils exist only in dependence on this primacy. Modernist misreadings aim to balance or diffuse this primacy into a perpetual episcopal parliament.
More gravely, this entire construction presupposes that manifest modernists and ecumenists – men publicly contradicting defined doctrine – can validly exercise episcopal authority and act as pillars of an Ecumenical Council, as if *fides* and *communio* were intact:
– Yet integral theology, reiterating Bellarmine and the traditional canonists (as summarized in the Defense of Sedevacantism file), affirms that a manifest heretic cannot be a member of the Church, still less her head or a legitimate lawgiver.
– Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code declares public defection from the faith vacates office ipso facto.
– The encyclical and disciplinary tradition condemn precisely the modernist ideas many of these “Fathers” publicly endorsed.
Thus “Mirabilis ille” is built on a theological fiction: a conciliar body composed in large part of those who, by their words and doctrines, stand outside the Church, treating them as legitimate organs of the Holy Ghost.
2. Silence on Modernism: The Dog That Does Not Bark
The most damning feature is what John XXIII refuses to say.
– No mention of Modernism as condemned by St. Pius X, despite its manifest resurgence in biblical criticism, liturgy, catechesis.
– No mention of the Syllabus of Errors, no reiteration of the social kingship of Christ as defined by Pius XI in Quas Primas, despite the letter’s repeated allusions to “peace” and “human prosperity.”
– No denunciation of socialism, communism, laicism, Freemasonry, or the masonic sects, even though (as the Syllabus text itself reaffirms) these are primary forces waging war on the Church and on Christian society.
This silence is not accidental; it is methodological. The Council is framed as a positive, optimistic, “pastoral” event that deliberately declines to condemn, choosing “dialogue” with precisely those forces earlier popes unmasked as the “synagogue of Satan.”
The file The Syllabus Of Errors reminds us that the Church identified masonic and kindred sects as orchestrators of a war on the Church, to be condemned and resisted, not flattered or welcomed as dialogue partners. In “Mirabilis ille” there is no echo of this vigilance. Instead: confidence in universal goodwill and historical progress. This is *modernist naturalism* cloaked in pious phrases.
3. Pseudo-Mission: From Conversion to Universal Embrace
John XXIII cites Scripture abundantly: “He is the propitiation… for the whole world,” “the true light,” “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
But how are these texts deployed?
– Not to reaffirm the exclusive necessity of membership in the Catholic Church for salvation (as taught consistently before 1958),
– Not to summon “separated brethren” and infidels to abjure their errors and enter the one ark,
– But to justify a Council that opens itself “not only” to internal Catholic concerns, lest it be accused of being limited, but explicitly positions itself as a beacon for all humanity, all religions, all ideologies.
This subtle twist converts the supernatural dogma of the universality of Christ’s redemption into a naturalistic, humanitarian agenda. The Council is not primarily to defend and clarify dogma; it is to be “service” to the world, a contribution to universal peace and development.
Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches clearly:
– True peace and social order are only possible under the public reign of Christ the King; refusal of His social kingship is the root of modern disasters.
John XXIII’s letter:
– Never invokes the obligation of states to recognize Christ’s kingship;
– Speaks of peace and prosperity as if they can flow from conciliar “opening,” goodwill, and dialogue, without the explicit submission of nations and individuals to Christ’s law.
This omission is a frontal betrayal. *Pax Christi in Regno Christi* is replaced by an undefined “peace” arising from multilateral ecclesial diplomacy. This is the “secularism of our times” (Quas Primas) baptized, not refuted.
4. Ecumenism as Practical Denial of the Dogma of the Church
The letter highlights with evident satisfaction:
– The invitations to non-Catholic observers at the Council,
– Their respectful acceptance,
– Their benevolent attitude as a cause of “great consolation,”
– A sense that this indicates an approach to Christ’s prayer “ut unum sint.”
But it never:
– Calls these communities back from their heresies and schisms,
– States that unity requires their unconditional submission to the Roman Pontiff and Catholic doctrine,
– Affirms that outside the Church there is no salvation in the traditional, dogmatic sense.
Instead, the ecumenical method exemplified here – later fully codified by the conciliar sect – treats persistent separation as compatible with mutual esteem; unity becomes a convergence process, not a return. This praxis contradicts:
– The constant teaching of the Magisterium prior to 1958;
– The condemnations in the Syllabus of indifferentism (props. 15–18),
– The position that Protestantism is not “another form” of the same true religion.
It is impossible to reconcile the ecumenist optimism of “Mirabilis ille” with the integral doctrine of the one true Church. The letter functions as a charter for the subsequent ecumenical revolution, whereby the “neo-church” relativizes Catholic exclusivity and enthrones “dialogue” as a higher value than dogmatic clarity.
5. Laicization and Democratization: Clergy and Laity as Pressure Base for the Neo-Council
The letter mobilizes:
– Bishops: to maintain close “spiritual unity” with Rome, to work with appointed experts and commissions.
– Clergy and religious: as collaborators to assist their bishops in conciliar matters.
– Laity: to pray, hope, and be actively engaged in the Council’s success.
On the surface, this appears Catholic. But consider:
– The faithful are not called to defend defined teachings against modernist attacks, nor to increase devotion to the Most Holy Sacrifice in the traditional rite, nor to do penance for sins that call down divine chastisement.
– Instead, they are asked to attach their hopes for “peace” and “prosperity” of the human family to the outcome of Vatican II as such.
The Council becomes a plebiscitary drama, with laity and media as spectators whose favor is courted. This prepares the ground for the later cult of “the people of God,” the democratization of doctrine, and the inversion by which “public opinion” inside the conciliar sect exerts pressure on pseudo-magisterial acts.
Integral Catholic doctrine teaches:
– The *Ecclesia docens* (teaching Church) has authority from Christ; the *Ecclesia discens* (learning Church) receives, not creates, dogma.
– Lamentabili rejects the false thesis that the “teaching Church” merely ratifies the opinions of the “listening Church.”
“Mirabilis ille,” by exalting the horizontal convergence of bishops, experts, and laity around a pastoral project, erodes in practice the vertical, supernatural structure of authority, replacing it with a consensus-driven organism. That consensus is then manipulated by the modernist elite controlling the structures occupying the Vatican.
Symptomatic Level: Mirabilis ille as Symptom and Instrument of the Conciliar Revolution
This letter is not an isolated text. It is a node in a system. Several symptomatic features reveal its function in the broader apostasy.
1. The Deliberate Pastoral Mask
Nowhere does John XXIII openly deny defined dogma in this letter. The method is more insidious:
– retain orthodox phrases (citations of Scripture, mentions of the Church as “one, holy, catholic and apostolic”),
– omit all sharp edges (no condemnations, no anathemas, no named enemies),
– load the text with modern aspirations: human unity, peace, ecumenism, sympathy for observers, adulation of public opinion,
– reframe the Council as primarily pastoral, not dogmatic.
This corresponds exactly to the blueprint of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X:
– Dogmas are not explicitly denied, but their practical significance is altered.
– The magisterium is presented as fostering historical “development,” which in practice means mutation.
– Pastoral language is weaponized to smuggle new theology under the guise of continuity.
Thus “Mirabilis ille” is a paradigmatic expression of what later propagandists would call “hermeneutic of continuity”: formal verbal continuity hiding real doctrinal rupture.
2. Diffusion of Authority and the Cult of Structures
The obsessive focus on commissions, sub-secretaries, and experts prefigures the paramasonic, technocratic operation of the conciliar sect:
– True authority (rooted in divine law and tradition) is replaced by networks, committees, drafting groups.
– Transparency is replaced by “almost hidden and secret, yet very useful and effective” labors – John XXIII’s own terms praise secrecy.
– This resembles nothing so much as the modus operandi of masonic or political apparatuses: staged assemblies ratifying texts prepared by hidden circles.
The pre-1958 Magisterium, in contrast, publishes doctrinal texts clearly, assumes responsibility, condemns errors by name. Here, decisions gestate in the shadows of commissions, shielded by saccharine rhetoric. *Lex lucis* is replaced by procedural obscurity.
3. Strategic Ambiguity toward the World
John XXIII notes that initially the Council did not particularly interest civil society, but later it aroused great respect, even among those of different religious, philosophical, political views; he suggests that perhaps “the light of heavenly grace” is approaching them through this event.
He draws no distinction between:
– superficial curiosity of media and politicians,
– genuine attrition and conversion to the one true faith.
He equates respect for the Council as institution with proximity to Christ, thus:
– legitimizing the Council in the eyes of the world by the world’s attention,
– legitimizing the world’s expectations in the eyes of Catholics.
This reciprocal flattery locks Church and world into a humanistic pact. Instead of the world being judged and converted by the Church, the “Church of the New Advent” seeks validation by serving the world’s agenda. It is the precise inversion warned against by Pius IX and Pius X, and it blossoms later into the cult of “human rights,” interreligious prayer spectacles, and public repentance for the Church’s alleged “rigidity.”
4. Instrumentalizing Scripture for a Universalist Agenda
The letter strings together texts about universality of redemption and light:
– “He is the propitiation… for the whole world,”
– “The true light which enlightens every man,”
– “All flesh shall see the salvation of God,”
– “No respect of persons with God,”
– “The grace of God has appeared to all men.”
But:
– The patristic and magisterial tradition reads these within the framework of the necessity of faith and baptism, and the unique mediatorship of the Catholic Church.
– The Syllabus and previous popes condemn the idea that any religion suffices or that salvation is easily presumed for all.
John XXIII, however, uses these passages to underwrite the idea that the Council must extend its horizon beyond Catholic concerns and serve the entire human race.
This hermeneutic – isolating universal-sounding texts from their doctrinal synthesis – is typical of Modernism: a sentimental universalism that empties dogma. It prepared the neo-church’s later practical teaching in which almost all are presumed saved, conversion is de-emphasized, and hell disappears from preaching.
5. The “One Flock” Weaponized Against the True Demand: Return to Rome
The letter alludes to Christ’s words about “other sheep” and “one flock, one shepherd,” evoking longing for unity. But:
– It does not state that unity is possible only by acceptance of Catholic doctrine and jurisdiction.
– It presents the mere benevolent attention of separated communities to the Council as a kind of partial realization of unity.
– It idealizes a future day whose dawn is supposedly glimpsed in this ecumenical cordiality.
This is a textbook example of what pre-1958 popes rejected:
– confounding desire for unity with relativistic convergence,
– failing to affirm the unique, non-negotiable claims of the Roman Church.
The result is a unity emptied of its doctrinal and juridical content. This paves the way for post-conciliar ecumenism in which persistent heresy and schism are no obstacles to joint prayer and practical “partial communion.” It inverts the dogma *extra Ecclesiam nulla salus* into *omnes iam fere salvi sunt*.
6. Self-Glorification of Vatican II as the Locus of Hope
Repeatedly, the letter attaches to Vatican II expectations of:
– “secure peace,”
– “moderate and secure prosperity,”
– global spiritual fruits for humanity.
It encourages clergy and laity to see in the Council’s “happy outcome” the decisive factor for the future of the Church and the world.
In Catholic doctrine, hope rests on:
– Christ’s redeeming Sacrifice,
– the perennial magisterium,
– the sacraments, especially the Most Holy Sacrifice,
– the fidelity of the Church to tradition.
In “Mirabilis ille,” hope is functionally relocated to the success of a specific event and its “pastoral” innovations. This is conciliar self-idolatry: the paramasonic structure enthrones its own assembly as salvific medium. When such a body betrays doctrine, it becomes, in fact, *abominatio desolationis* in the holy place.
Integral Catholic Response: Exposing the Bankruptcy and Confirming the Only Path
Given the above, from the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine:
– The letter “Mirabilis ille” is not a harmless pastoral exhortation.
– It is a programmatic text preparing, justifying, and spiritualizing the conciliar revolution.
– It uses Scripture and pious language as cosmetic covering for a radical shift:
– from dogma to “pastoral” adaptation,
– from condemnation of error to dialogue with error,
– from the Kingship of Christ over nations to humanistic peace,
– from the necessity of the Catholic Church to an ecumenical convergence,
– from clear magisterium to process, commissions, and controlled ambiguity.
Measured by the pre-1958 doctrinal corpus (Syllabus, Quas Primas, Lamentabili, Pascendi, the teaching of Trent and Vatican I):
– Its ecumenism contradicts Catholic exclusivity.
– Its optimism about the world contradicts the Church’s sober discernment of the “mystery of iniquity.”
– Its silence regarding Modernism, Freemasonry, socialism, secularism contradicts the duty of the magisterium to warn and condemn.
– Its exaltation of Vatican II as such reveals the nascent cult of the council that will supplant the cultus of Christ the King and of the Most Holy Sacrifice.
There is no “hermeneutic” capable of reconciling this orientation with the prior magisterium. The attempt to do so is itself a modernist operation: *verba manent, res mutantur* (words remain, realities are changed).
The only coherent Catholic conclusion is:
– A so-called “council” convoked and directed by a manifest innovator who blesses a new relationship with the world, refuses to wield the sword against condemned errors, and elevates pastoral novelty above doctrinal guardianship, lacks the note of a true, Catholic Ecumenical Council.
– Texts like “Mirabilis ille” expose the spirit governing the conciliar enterprise: a spirit incompatible with the integral faith.
Therefore, fidelity to Christ and His unchanging Church requires:
– Rejecting the humanist, ecumenist, modernist program articulated and presupposed by this letter.
– Holding fast to the magisterium and sacramental life guaranteed before the advent of the conciliar sect.
– Recognizing that the only path to true peace is the restoration of the social and personal reign of Christ the King, as Pius XI taught; anything less is illusion.
– Persevering in the faith of all ages, without compromise, without submission to the pseudo-authorities who engineered and still exploit this neo-council for the construction of a paramasonic “church of man.”
“Tota lex Christi et Ecclesiae eius est immutabilis”: the entire law of Christ and His Church is unchangeable. “Mirabilis ille” is a hymn not to that immutability, but to its dissolution.
Source:
Mirabilis Ille – Ad singulos Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopos ceterosque Patres Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, in Epiphania Domin (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025