John XXIII’s brief Latin note flatters Louis Shvoy, “bishop” of Alba Regalis, on his eightieth birthday, praising his prudence, firmness, and merits, invoking divine reward, and imparting an “Apostolic Blessing” on him, his clergy, and his people; nothing more is said, and precisely this emptiness, issuing from the first usurper of the conciliar epoch, reveals an ecclesiastical power already transformed into courteous naturalism, sentimentality and institutional self-congratulation cut off from the integral kingship of Christ and the authentic Catholic notion of the episcopate and grace.
Polite Formalism as the Manifesto of a New Religion
This very short epistle, taken in isolation, might appear “harmless”: there is no explicit heresy, no direct doctrinal proposition, only protocol, greetings, and pious wishes. However, from the perspective of *integral Catholic faith* grounded exclusively in pre-1958 doctrine, this text is symptomatic: a signum exiguum (small sign) which, precisely in its banality, unmasks a different religion operating under Catholic vestments.
The sender is John XXIII, the inaugurator of the conciliar revolution, praised even by the enemies of the Church for “opening the windows.” The very fact that he is presented as “IOANNES PP. XXIII” in an official document requires immediate doctrinal rejection:
– A public modernist and architect of the aggiornamento cannot be regarded as Roman Pontiff without denying the perennial doctrine that a manifest heretic cannot hold the papal office (*non potest esse caput qui desinit esse membrum* – “he who ceases to be a member cannot be head”), as clearly taught in substance by St. Robert Bellarmine and reflected juridically in Canon 188 §4 CIC 1917 (public defection from the faith vacates office).
– By initiating the Second Vatican Council with the explicit program of softening condemnation of errors, glorifying “modern man,” and relativizing the vigilance mandated by Pius IX and St. Pius X against liberalism and Modernism, John XXIII revealed the spirit of rupture with the *Syllabus*, *Pascendi*, and *Lamentabili sane exitu*.
Therefore, any official act issued under his name, even a birthday greeting, is not a neutral trifle but an act of the nascent conciliar pseudo-magisterium, a counterfeit authority blessing counterfeit structures.
Factual Level: A Vacuous Panegyric within an Occupied Structure
Key elements of the letter (translated):
– “We do not wish your eightieth birthday to pass without offering Our congratulations and wishes.”
– “Charity of benevolence compels Us…”
– “You have long devoted labours to protect the advantage and honour of the Church committed to your guidance.”
– “In grave circumstances you have excelled by prudence and firmness of spirit, acquiring no small merits, which the just Saviour will reward.”
– “May God adorn your venerable old age with holy joys… We impart Our Apostolic Blessing to you, your clergy and people.”
No explicit doctrinal statement; only:
– institutional self-praise,
– moral eulogy of a hierarch,
– invocation of “merits,” “holy joys,” and a generic “Apostolic Blessing.”
However, crucial facts are silently presupposed and distorted:
1. The text assumes John XXIII is true Pope and Shvoy is a Catholic bishop in full communion. That assumption is the central falsehood of the entire conciliar epoch.
2. It recognizes and confirms a hierarchy already contaminated by pre-conciliar progressivism and preparing for collaboration with the conciliar revolution.
3. It functions as a legitimating gesture: a “pontiff” praising episcopal performance without reference to doctrinal fidelity measured against anti-liberal and anti-modernist teaching.
What is missing is more important than what is said.
Linguistic Level: Sentimental Humanism Instead of Apostolic Gravity
The rhetoric is revealing:
– The style is syrupy, courtly, and horizontal: “congratulations and wishes,” “benevolence,” “venerable white hair adorned with joys.”
– Christ is invoked predominantly as the one who bestows rewards upon episcopal “merits,” not as *Rex regum* (King of kings) whose law must be defended publicly against Masonic civil powers condemned by Pius IX and Leo XIII.
– The “Church” is mentioned as an administrative entity whose “advantage and honour” are to be protected, but no explicit link is made to the one, exclusive, visible, doctrinally uncompromising Catholic Church described as a *societas perfecta* by Leo XIII and defended in the *Syllabus* against state subjugation and liberal dissolution.
In pre-1958 papal correspondence, even in congratulatory notes, there is normally:
– clear doctrinal anchoring;
– calls to defend the faith against concrete errors;
– emphasis on the supernatural end: salvation of souls, perseverance in *status gratiae* (state of grace), fidelity to the *depositum fidei*.
Here, there is:
– no warning about socialism, communism, or liberalism;
– no mention of Modernism, despite St. Pius X’s solemn condemnation and ongoing spread of errors;
– no explicit exhortation to guard the flock against heresy, indifferentism, secularism, condemned in *Quas Primas*, *Syllabus*, and *Pascendi*.
The tone is bureaucratic and worldly, the very “pastoral” sentimentalism that will be enthroned at Vatican II: a church of compliments, dialogue, and emotional warmth, without dogmatic edge. This linguistic shift is itself theological: it signals the transition from the Church Militant to a para-masonic NGO of spiritualized humanitarianism.
Theological Level: Implicit Denial of the True Nature of the Episcopate and Papacy
Even in its brevity, this letter conflicts with the integral Catholic concept of authority.
1. Legitimization of a counterfeit pontificate
By accepting John XXIII as Pope, one must:
– close one’s eyes to his public praise for religious liberty and aggiornamento;
– ignore his rehabilitation of those under suspicion of Modernism;
– pretend that *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili sane exitu* no longer bind with full rigor against Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies.”
But Catholic doctrine teaches:
– The Pope is the guardian, not the relativizer, of tradition: *tradidi quod et accepi* (“I delivered what I also received”).
– A pontiff who undermines previous solemn condemnations of liberalism and Modernism, even “pastorally,” acts contrary to the end of his office.
– A manifest, obstinate deviation in doctrine or in the anti-modernist discipline cannot coexist with the charism of jurisdiction; a non-member cannot govern the body.
By greeting a “bishop” without any doctrinal exhortation or condemnation of surrounding errors, John XXIII behaves as head of an episcopal club, not Vicar of Christ. The office is invoked as formality, emptied of its theological weight.
2. Reduction of the bishop to an administrator praised for “prudence” in adverse circumstances
A Catholic bishop is:
– successor of the Apostles,
– guard of doctrine,
– judge of faith,
– defender of the flock against wolves, heresies, secret societies condemned relentlessly by Pius IX and Leo XIII.
This letter applauds:
– “prudence,”
– “firmness,”
– institutional “merits,”
but says nothing about:
– defending the flock from communism and liberalism in the light of the *Syllabus*;
– enforcing discipline against false ecumenism or doctrinal laxity;
– preaching Christ’s social kingship as defined in *Quas Primas*.
The silence is damning: by omitting the supernatural responsibilities of episcopal office, the letter implicitly redefines it as a decorous function in a human organization, rewarded by compliments and blessings from a figurehead “pope.” This is the very spirit condemned by Pius XI, who insisted that peace and order are impossible until nations and authorities recognize the reign of Christ the King in public life.
3. Sentimental “charity” without doctrinal content
The letter’s key moral driver is said to be:
– “praecipua benevolentiae caritas” – a “special charity of benevolence.”
True ecclesial charity is:
– ordered by truth (*caritas in veritate*);
– inseparable from the duty to warn against error;
– always seeking the salvation of souls (*salus animarum suprema lex*).
Here, “charity” is reduced to:
– polite congratulations,
– hopes for temporal consolation,
– invocation of a blessing that is itself the exercise of a usurped authority.
Such “charity” is sentimentalism masking apostasy.
Symptomatic Level: The Small Courteous Letter as DNA of Conciliar Apostasy
This document, placed in 1959, must be read as a prelude to the conciliar catastrophe. Its symptoms:
1. Institutional self-referentiality
The focus is inward: bishop, diocese, institutional merits. No mention that:
– the Church must continue to anathematize condemned propositions from the *Syllabus* and *Lamentabili*;
– the world is sinking deeper into naturalism, laicism, socialism, and masonic infiltration;
– bishops stand under a grave obligation to reject “religious liberty,” “separation of Church and state,” and the “rights of error.”
This self-referential tone anticipates Vatican II’s self-celebratory ecclesiology, which exalts “collegiality,” “people of God,” and “dialogue” at the expense of clear condemnation of heresy and false religions.
2. Pastoralism as camouflage
The letter is “purely pastoral,” we are told. But Pius X exposed exactly this: the modernist tactic of smuggling doctrinal shifts under the guise of “pastoral” gestures. A magisterium that speaks almost exclusively in consolations, greetings, and humanistic bromides prepares the faithful psychologically to accept changes in worship, doctrine, and discipline as “merciful adaptations.”
This letter:
– confirms a bishop without recalling his duty to resist those very liberal and modernist forces already condemned by prior popes;
– praises “prudence” while not defining its object (fidelity to doctrine) — opening the door for “prudence” to mean compromise with the world and the communist or liberal regimes.
3. Silence about the true enemies of Christ’s Kingdom
Contrary to Pius XI’s *Quas Primas*, which insists that public apostasy and laicism are the plague of our times, this 1959 text:
– says nothing about Christ’s social kingship;
– says nothing about the duty of states and bishops to reject secularism and Masonic legislation;
– offers no condemnation of the forces already attacking the Church.
The silence itself aligns with the program John XXIII would make explicit: no more “prophets of doom,” no more clear denunciation of error. Yet Pius IX explicitly condemned the idea that the Roman Pontiff must “reconcile himself with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (*Syllabus* prop. 80). The conciliar spirit does exactly what Pius IX anathematized.
4. Validation of a hierarchy preparing for doctrinal surrender
By this time, many episcopates had already absorbed liberal, ecumenical, and modernist tendencies. A true Pope, formed by the doctrine of Pius IX and St. Pius X, would:
– strengthen faithful bishops against modern errors;
– remove or correct compromised bishops;
– recall solemnly the binding character of anti-modernist teaching.
Instead, John XXIII’s “magisterium of smiles” confirms everyone, blesses everyone, corrects no one. This is not neutrality; it is complicity. It paves the way for the conciliar sect: a paramasonic structure where hierarchy is preserved externally, but its supernatural mission is evacuated.
Contradiction with Pre-1958 Magisterium: Silence as Revolt
Measured exclusively by the unchanging doctrine prior to 1958, this small epistle is the opposite of what a Catholic papal letter should be in those historical circumstances.
Compare:
– Pius IX in the *Syllabus*: fiercely condemns rationalism, indifferentism, religious liberalism, the separation of Church and State, and masonic conspiracies.
– Leo XIII in *Immortale Dei*, *Libertas*, *Humanum Genus*: exposes Freemasonry, false freedom of conscience, and insists on Christ’s kingship over societies.
– St. Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili sane exitu*: unmasks Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies,” imposes the anti-modernist oath, insists on doctrinal vigilance.
All this doctrine remains in force and irreformable in its substance.
Now, in 1959:
– a supposed successor issues a hollow panegyric without any doctrinal resonance;
– he does not reaffirm the prior condemnations;
– he does not urge the bishop to resist precisely the currents that he himself, John XXIII, is preparing to accommodate.
This is de facto repudiation by omission. It manifests a new “magisterial” style whose essence is the suppression of anathematizing truth in favor of diplomatic, emotional, human-centered gestures. Such omission is not accidental; it is the method by which the conciliar neo-church emerges.
Ecclesiological Consequences: Blessing Without Authority, “Merits” Without Warfare
The conclusion imparted:
– “Apostolic Benediction to you, Venerable Brother, your clergy and people.”
But:
– An usurper cannot impart what he does not possess. His “blessing” is a juridically and theologically empty sign, a liturgical facade covering the reality of usurpation.
– The clergy and people thus “blessed” are directed not toward militant fidelity to Christ the King and His immutable doctrine, but toward submission to coming conciliar reforms: liturgical devastation, ecumenism, religious liberty, democratization of the Church, the cult of man.
– Praise of “merits” without reference to doctrine empties the notion of merit: in Catholic teaching, *meritum* is intrinsically tied to fidelity to revealed truth and the commandments, not to efficient administration of a diocese within a system drifting toward apostasy.
Hence the letter’s implicit theology is:
– the Church as a respectable institution with aging functionaries;
– the “Pope” as a benevolent chairman of a spiritual corporation;
– “charity” as cordiality;
– “blessing” as institutional stamp of approval.
Christ the King, the Cross, the need for repentance, the reality of hell, the war against heresy and Freemasonry, the exclusive necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation: all absent. This is not a neutral gap; it is the mark of the conciliar, anthropocentric, naturalistic mentality.
Conclusion: The Gentle Smile of John XXIII as Prelude to Devastation
This brief felicitation text, dated February 25, 1959, is a microcosm:
– It presupposes and confirms a hierarchically structured body that has already ceased to speak with the voice of Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St. Pius X.
– It exemplifies the style that will suffocate dogmatic clarity under oceans of “pastoral” pleasantries.
– It reveals a pseudo-pontiff who prefers flattering words to the duty, gravely binding on every true successor of Peter, to warn, correct, and condemn.
Theological bankruptcy here consists precisely in:
– silence where the prior Magisterium demanded thunder;
– sentimentality where supernatural militancy was required;
– institutional self-celebration where humble fidelity and fear of God should rule.
Under the guise of a birthday greeting, we see the courtiers of the coming neo-church saluting one another while the citadel of the faith is being opened from within. The document is minimal in words, maximal in symptom: it is the smile of the doorkeeper by which the abomination of desolation will enter the sanctuary.
Source:
Octogesimum Natalem – Ad Ludovicum Shvoy, Episcopum Albae Regalensis, octogesimum natalem agentem, die 25 m. Februarii a. 1959, Ioannes PP.XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025