The letter “Mirabilis ille,” dated 6 January 1963, is John XXIII’s Epiphany message to all bishops and other “Fathers” of the so‑called Second Vatican Council. It recalls with pathos the “wonderful assembly” of bishops in St Peter’s, insists that the Council is to be seen as continually in progress even between its sessions, establishes a new commission of “cardinals” to coordinate conciliar work, exhorts bishops to collaborate through correspondence and local initiatives, urges clergy and laity to pray and engage for the Council’s success, highlights the presence and goodwill of non-Catholic observers, and universalizes the Council’s horizon as an instrument for peace, unity, and the good of all humanity. Under a veil of pious citations and rhetorical unction, the text programmatically shifts the axis of the Church from the immutable reign of Christ the King and the defense of dogma to a horizontal, diplomatic, media-conscious “event,” in which authority is functionally democratized and truth is relativized to “the whole human family.”
Programmatic Subversion of Catholic Ecclesiology in “Mirabilis ille”
Exaltation of a Conciliar Event Above the Perennial Kingship of Christ
The entire epistle is an apologia for the continuation and centrality of Vatican II as the defining reality of ecclesial life. From the outset John XXIII presents the gathering of bishops as a unique, almost epiphanic phenomenon perpetually before his eyes, and then asserts a continuous “extension” of the Council beyond its sessions, transforming it into a permanent process.
He writes that the months from Epiphany to the Nativity of Our Lady must be regarded as “vera continuatio operis Concilio impendendi,” a true continuation of conciliar work, in which the eyes, hearts, and efforts of all mankind converge upon this process. The Council is placed at the gravitational centre not only of the Church but of “all men throughout the world,” as if supernatural order, salvation, and peace were suspended upon a procedural and pastoral colloquium.
Measured by integral Catholic doctrine, this is the first radical deviation:
– Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925.12.11), teaches with crystalline clarity that peace and true order depend on the public and private recognition of the social Kingship of Christ, on submission of individuals and states to His law, and on the full rights and liberty of the Church to govern souls for eternal life. There is no hint in Quas Primas that any council, let alone a “pastoral” one, could become the new centre of gravity. Peace is only possible in the Kingdom of Christ, not in a procedural cult of episcopal assemblies.
– Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemns the notion that progress, liberalism, and modern civilization set the norm for the Church (prop. 80), and rejects religious indifferentism and the levelling of Catholicism with other confessions (props. 15–18).
“Mirabilis ille” inverts this hierarchy. The Kingship of Christ is mentioned rhetorically at Epiphany, but immediately subordinated to the “great sacred matter of the Council.” The text’s operative centre is not Christ reigning through His immutable law and the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary*, but a globalized, media-focused conciliar process which allegedly radiates benefits to all mankind, of every belief, simply by existing.
This is a paradigmatic shift: from *lex credendi, lex orandi* to *lex concilii, lex opinionis*. The Council is implicitly absolutized as the interpretive key of the Church’s presence in the world. This mentality, made explicit in later neo-church propaganda, is already fully encoded here.
Pious Rhetoric Masking the Proto-Democratization of Teaching Authority
One of the gravest aspects of the letter is the way John XXIII speaks of the relationship between the Roman primacy and the episcopal body:
– He states that the Council receives general norms from the Roman pontiff; but he immediately emphasizes that it “also pertains” to the bishops to determine the mode of celebration “with due liberty,” and describes conciliar decrees as being elaborated, weighed, formed, and “subscribed together with the Roman Pontiff.”
– He appeals to Acts 15 as the “perfect model” of a council, presenting in highly selective fashion an image of collegial co-governance.
On the surface this seems orthodox; in reality it subtly prepares the theological revolution later formalized in Lumen Gentium’s ambiguous doctrine of collegiality and weaponized by the conciliar sect against the monarchical constitution of the Church.
Integral Catholic doctrine before 1958 is unequivocal:
– The Church is a *societas perfecta*, divinely constituted, with a monarchical head on earth: the Roman Pontiff. Vatican I’s Pastor Aeternus (1870) dogmatically defines the full and supreme jurisdiction of the Pope over the universal Church, independent of any other human authority, and teaches that this primacy includes the right to freely exercise his power and to be the ultimate judge in doctrinal and disciplinary matters.
– Pius IX (Syllabus, prop. 23) condemns the assertion that popes and ecumenical councils have exceeded their powers or erred in faith and morals; Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi condemns the democratizing, historicizing reduction of magisterial authority to an expression of “collective conscience” or of the “Church listening.”
“Mirabilis ille” signs onto the modernist narrative of a “synodal” dynamic in which bishops, as a worldwide body, are invited to perceive themselves not simply as subjects hierarchically united to the Roman Primacy, but as co-legislators whose correspondence, local initiatives, and continuous input constitute an essential dimension of authority. The text extols:
– “artam animorum coniunctionem” of bishops via epistolary cooperation;
– structured roles for local experts and consultants feeding into conciliar commissions;
– the centrality of a newly established “Commissio Patrum Cardinalium” coordinating the entire process.
None of these elements is per se evil—previous councils employed theologians and commissions—but here they are presented as the normal and permanent mode of exercising authority, not as subordinate, ad hoc instruments ordered to the defense of defined dogma. The emphasis falls on technical management, procedural continuity, and diffuse participation, rather than on the clear, juridical exercise of the divinely instituted primacy.
This is the germ of the later “synodality” cult, where authority migrates from the supernatural mandate “Feed my sheep” to bureaucratic flowcharts and consultative mechanisms that flatter human sensibilities and dilute responsibility. It is the ecclesiastical analogue of condemned liberal parliamentarism transplanted into the sanctuary.
Silence on Dogma, Salvation, and Sacrifice: The Void at the Core
The most damning feature of “Mirabilis ille” is not what it says, but what it omits. Measured by the constant Magisterium, its silence is thunderous.
Across the entire letter:
– There is almost no doctrinal precision about the ends of the Council. No insistence that its primary task must be to condemn errors ravaging the modern world: atheism, socialism, communism, naturalism, religious indifferentism, Modernism—the very plagues denounced by Pius IX in the Syllabus, by Leo XIII, St. Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– There is practically no mention of the absolute necessity of the Catholic faith and membership in the true Church for salvation, as solemnly taught by the Fathers, by Ineffabilis Deus, by the Council of Florence, by Pius IX in Quanto conficiamur and Singulari quidem, by Leo XIII and others.
– There is no serious reference to the *Most Holy Sacrifice* as propitiatory, to the need for the state of grace, to the fear of hell, to the Four Last Things. Instead we find emotive images of goodwill, peace, and vague “prosperity” for mankind.
– The Council is expected to yield benefits such as “moderata ac secura pace prosperitasque,” a moderate, secure peace and prosperity for the human family: an earthly equilibrium, almost naturalistic, as if the primary expectation from an ecumenical council were temporal well-being.
This horizontalism stands in stark contrast to Pius XI’s Quas Primas, which thunders against laicism, against the eviction of Christ from public life, and teaches that secular society must be ordered explicitly to Christ’s law. Pius XI and Pius IX name the enemy: the Masonic, liberal, naturalistic revolt against the divine constitution of Church and society. “Mirabilis ille” carefully avoids this combat.
Such domesticated language—optimistic, diplomatic, saturated with appeals to “humanity,” but empty of dogmatic edge—is precisely what St. Pius X in Pascendi identified as the tactic of Modernists: preserve formulas, drain them of content, replace the supernatural struggle of the Church Militant with a sentimental narrative of “dialogue” and “universal fraternity.”
Here lies the real “mirabilis”: a marvel of ecclesial newspeak, in which bishops are mobilized, commissions erected, laity animated, but almost no one is called to conversion from error to the one ark of salvation. The Council is not announced as a sword (cf. Matt 10:34) against heresy, but as a public relations instrument to reassure the world.
Legitimizing Non-Catholic “Observers”: Seed of False Ecumenism
A pivotal section exults over the invitation and presence of non-Catholic observers at the Council:
John XXIII notes with satisfaction that the invitations extended to separated brethren to send observers to Vatican II had a “felicem, spectabilem tranquillumque exitum,” and interprets their respectful attitude as a sign of grace and as a step toward fulfilling Christ’s prayer “ut sint unum.”
From the vantage of integral Catholic teaching, several things stand out:
1. The very notion of granting institutional observer status to sects that formally reject the Roman Pontiff, deny dogmas, and persist in schism or heresy departs from traditional discipline. Before 1958, the Holy See treated heretical and schismatic bodies as objects of conversion, not as quasi-partners or honored witnesses in conciliar deliberations.
2. Pius IX, in the Syllabus, condemns the proposition that Protestantism is only another form of the true Christian religion (prop. 18), and that good hope of salvation may be entertained for all outside the Church without qualification (prop. 17). The prior magisterium distinguishes sharply between those in invincible ignorance and the organized sects propagating error.
3. Historical councils confronted heresies and summoned heretics to submit, not to observe. Nicaea, Ephesus, Trent did not invite Arians, Nestorians, or Lutherans as “observers” to legitimize their standing; they condemned their errors and called them to repentance.
“Mirabilis ille” never recalls that unity can only be in the truth: in the one true Church, under the true Roman Pontiff, by submission to defined dogmas and renunciation of heresies. Instead, it speaks the embryonic language of “ecumenism” that the conciliar sect later weaponized into the practical denial of *extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*. The presence of observers is read as almost sacramental of approaching unity, without any mention of their obligation to convert.
This is precisely the relativizing mentality condemned already by Pius IX and unmasked doctrinally by St. Pius X: exalting sentimental “respect” and common Christian labels over the objective reality of dogmatic division and culpable rebellion. The letter thus contributes to dissolving the missionary imperative into an ecumenical theatre.
Human-Family Rhetoric and the Naturalistic Reinterpretation of the Church
A hallmark of the text is its constant widening of scope from the Catholic flock to “universa humana familia,” the whole human family, in terms which predispose the later cult of man publicly glorified by the conciliar sect.
John XXIII insists:
– The Council’s work concerns not only Catholics but the whole world.
– Humanity awaits from the Council peace, prosperity, and a more just order.
– Scriptural texts on Christ as light of all men and Savior of the world are invoked, but without the traditional insistence that this universal salvific will is applied concretely and exclusively in the Catholic Church and requires faith, baptism, and submission to the true hierarchy.
In isolation, citing “Apparuit gratia Dei Salvatoris nostri omnibus hominibus” (Tit 2:11) is orthodox. But here these texts are subtly re-framed to justify a universalistic, quasi-humanitarian mission of the Council, preparing the ground for documents that will proclaim religious liberty, esteem for false religions, and dialogue with those explicitly rejecting Christ’s reign in society—positions previously condemned (Syllabus, Quanta Cura, etc.).
The structural error is this: the letter suggests that the Council, simply by existing and by its pastoral style, channels grace and moral uplift to all peoples, independently of their conversion to the integral Catholic faith. The supernatural order is flattened into a moral influence on “public opinion,” a concept utterly foreign to the patristic and scholastic tradition.
By exalting this naturalistic universalism, “Mirabilis ille” already anticipates the post-conciliar apostasy:
– the disappearance of talk about the duty of nations to publicly acknowledge Christ the King (against Quas Primas);
– the tacit reversal of the condemnation of separation of Church and State (Syllabus, prop. 55);
– the trivialization of the Church’s supernatural exclusivity into an inclusive, dialogical platform.
The letter’s warm references to the positive expectations of those “who hold differing views in religion, philosophy, and public life” are not balanced by any warning against their errors, nor any statement that their systems—Masonry, liberalism, socialism, indifferentism—are condemned by the Church (as the Syllabus and successive pre‑1958 popes explicitly do). This omission is not accidental; it is programmatic.
The Linguistic Alchemy of Modernist Optimism
On the linguistic level, “Mirabilis ille” is a masterpiece of modernist alchemy: a carefully modulated Latinity placed at the service of a new religion.
Key characteristics:
– A persistent, almost sentimental optimism: Conciliar work is described as “feliciter inchoatum,” expectations are “laeta,” hopes “grandis spes,” the presence of observers a “magni solacii causa,” etc. There is no sense of crisis of faith, no warning of wolves, no denunciation of concrete heresies—only a vague, gentle allusion to the need for spiritual fruits.
– Anodyne references to the Holy Ghost: the Spirit is invoked as silently moving everywhere, but never as condemning error or arming the Church for combat, as Leo XIII and St. Pius X present Him in their encyclicals.
– Technical, bureaucratic tone concerning commissions, secretariats, advisory bodies, epistolary exchanges, all presented as quasi-sacred. The structures of a paramasonic organization, layered, procedural, opaque, are sacralized while the sharp dogmatic edges are dulled.
This is precisely how a revolution in doctrine is introduced without frontal denial: *eadem verba, alia mens* (the same words, another mind). The overall register reassures, anesthetizes, and disarms. Under a canopy of scriptural quotations, a new ecclesiological consciousness is instilled: less Church Militant, more ecclesial NGO; less guardian of dogma, more facilitator of dialogue; less emphasis on the Most Holy Sacrifice and sacraments, more on processes and meetings.
Such rhetoric is intrinsically opposed to the spirit of documents like Lamentabili and Pascendi, which, with masculine clarity, condemn modernist evasions and explicitly warn against those who, under the banner of historical method, development, and adaptation, seek to mutate dogma into a living product of collective consciousness.
“Mirabilis ille” is the soft face of that same project.
Instrumentalization of the Faithful: Mobilizing the Laity for a New Religion
The letter devotes significant space to clergy and laity “cooperating” for the Council’s success:
– It speaks of the growing religious interest and fervour of the faithful regarding the Council, likening it to a new Pentecost.
– It counsels against proliferating new forms of prayer, recommending existing devotions (Mass, Divine Office, Rosary) while urging an intensification of zeal for the Council.
– It describes in glowing terms how the entire Catholic population should direct prayer, sacrifices, and efforts to obtain a fruitful outcome of the Council, portrayed as a hinge-event for humanity.
At first glance this seems exemplary. Yet the object for which the faithful are mobilized is not the defense and reaffirmation of integral doctrine but the success of an assembly whose preparatory direction (already by 1963) was firmly set toward “aggiornamento”: opening to the world, changing language, softening condemnations, diluting exclusivity.
What is missing?
– No call to pray that the Council reaffirm without ambiguity the Syllabus, Quas Primas, Pascendi, Humani Generis, or that it anathematize communism, Freemasonry, modernist exegesis, and moral laxity.
– No exhortation to laity to examine their lives according to unchanging Catholic morals, to flee occasions of sin, to reject liberal media, pornographic culture, contraception, etc. Instead: generic “holiness” and “sanctifying life” without concrete doctrinal coordinates.
Thus the faithful are subtly exploited: their simple piety is redirected from the perennial ends of the Church (glory of God, salvation of souls, destruction of error) toward complicity in a project of doctrinal erosion. They are asked to pray not so that the Council may condemn the world, but so that it may please the world.
This inversion is a form of spiritual abuse. The integral Catholic faith demands that all efforts, all councils, all devotions be measured by their conformity to prior definitions and condemnations. The conciliar sect, already in 1963, seeks to measure Catholic conscience by fidelity to the Council itself.
From Monarchia Petri to Paraconciliar Regime: Symptom of Systemic Apostasy
“Mirabilis ille” is symptomatic of the deeper usurpation already underway:
– John XXIII, the initiator of the conciliar revolution, addresses bishops as co-actors in a vast redesign of the Church’s posture, without any intention to use the Council as a weapon against the doctrinal and moral devastation denounced by pre‑1958 popes.
– The new cardinal commission and secretariat function as the nervous system of a structure progressively decoupled from the spirit of Trent and Vatican I and increasingly attuned to liberal democracies and international organizations.
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic theology, this document thus reveals:
1. A functional denial of the Church’s self-sufficiency as *societas perfecta*, supplanting it with an ecclesial-politico organism ordered toward dialogue with the world.
2. An embryonic practical relativism: non-Catholic bodies treated not as obstinate rebels needing conversion but as respected interlocutors whose mere interest is hailed as a sign of grace, with no insistence on abjuration of error.
3. A willful neglect of the explicit condemnations of liberalism, socialism, religious liberty, and naturalism found in the Syllabus, Quanta Cura, Immortale Dei, Libertas, Pascendi, Quas Primas, and others. Silence here equals repudiation.
4. A nascent cult of the Council itself, elevated above prior magisterial acts, functioning as the new meta-dogma, the untouchable “event” to which all must submit.
By these traits, “Mirabilis ille” belongs integrally to the architecture of the conciliar sect: the paramasonic structure occupying the Vatican, which from John XXIII to the current antipope Leo XIV perpetuates the same naturalistic, ecumenical, anthropocentric storyline while parasitically exploiting the visibility and legal forms of the Catholic Church.
Reasserting the Only Catholic Criterion: Doctrine Before 1958
Against the seductive tone of this epistle, the only safe criterion is that explicitly stated: the unchanging, integral Catholic doctrine as taught consistently until the death of Pius XII.
According to that criterion:
– Any council, letter, or initiative that does not clearly reaffirm previous dogmatic condemnations, especially in an age when the condemned errors dominate, is objectively suspect.
– Any glorification of “humanity” and “the whole world” that fails to proclaim the necessity of conversion to the Catholic Church is a betrayal of the mandate “Euntes docete omnes gentes” (Matt 28:19).
– Any structural innovation that relativizes the monarchical primacy under the pretext of collegiality or synodality contradicts Pastor Aeternus and the perennial teaching on the constitution of the Church.
– Any enthusiasm for the presence of heretics and schismatics that omits their obligation to submit to the Roman See undercuts the very nature of true unity and fulfills the errors condemned by Pius IX regarding indifferentism and latitudinarianism.
“Mirabilis ille” systematically fails these tests. Behind its devout exterior lies an agenda: to habituate bishops and faithful to a new ecclesial consciousness in which the Council, not the defined doctrine, defines Catholicity; in which the world’s expectations, not God’s rights, dictate priorities; in which truth is no longer wielded as a sword but diluted into negotiation.
It is thus not a benign pastoral circular, but an index of theological and spiritual bankruptcy already corroding the highest levels of the visible structure in 1963: a bankruptcy which would soon bear its poisoned fruit in the documents, reforms, and sacrileges of Vatican II and its aftermath.
The only Catholic response is radical rejection of this orientation and an uncompromising return to the doctrine, worship, and discipline as professed and enforced before the conciliar revolution, under the authentic Magisterium of the true Roman Pontiffs.
Source:
Mirabilis ille – Epistula ad singulos Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopos ceterosque Patres Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, in Epiphania Domini, d. 6 m. Ianuarii a. 1962, Ioannes PP. XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025