This brief Latin letter of John XXIII congratulates Cardinal André Jullien on his approaching eightieth birthday. John praises Jullien’s juridical expertise, service in the Roman Rota, virtues of piety and modesty, and imparts an “Apostolic Blessing,” asking God to protect and console him in this life and the next.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, even this seemingly innocuous panegyric exemplifies the quiet substitution of a humanistic, curialist mutual admiration society for the supernatural gravity of the papal office and reveals the deeper rupture inaugurated by John XXIII: the enthronement of men and structures that would shortly serve as instruments of the conciliar revolution.
Hollow Courtesies at the Dawn of Revolution
Personaliste Flattery in Place of Apostolic Gravity
On the surface, the text consists of a conventional congratulatory note. Yet precisely in its harmless appearance lies its significance.
John XXIII addresses André Jullien as one whose long career in the Curia and the Roman Rota has earned him singular affection and esteem. He highlights:
– Jullien’s “juridical expertise” and prudence.
– His merits in various offices.
– His “piety, modesty, kindness, diligence.”
– His elevation to the college of cardinals.
– A wish that God grant him protection, holy joys, and eternal happiness.
– The bestowal of an “Apostolic Blessing.”
Nothing explicitly heterodox is asserted. But the integral Catholic reading must attend to: what is affirmed, what is omitted, and when this is written—October 18, 1962, in the very opening phase of Vatican II, under the same pontiff who convoked the council that dismantled, in practice and doctrine, the integral order defined by Trent, Vatican I, the Syllabus, Quas Primas, and the anti-modernist Magisterium.
The tone is that of a courteous functionary: urbane compliments for a technocrat of canon law embedded in the machinery that will soon be commandeered by the conciliar agenda. There is not a single word about:
– The defense of the integral faith against Modernism.
– The condemnation of liberal, Masonic, or naturalist infiltration—denounced repeatedly by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– The duty of a cardinal as defender of the rights of Christ the King and guardian of the flock against error.
– The looming doctrinal and liturgical subversion toward which John XXIII himself is steering the Church’s visible structures.
This silence is not neutral. It is programmatic.
Linguistic Cosmetics as a Symptom of Doctrinal Abdication
The rhetoric of the letter is soft, horizontal, and self-referential. Note the key features:
1. Curial self-congratulation:
John XXIII lauds Jullien for services inside the Roman Curia, especially as auditor and then dean of the Rota, and now as cardinal, emphasizing administrative and technical qualities. We read essentially an intra-bureaucratic decoration of a high official.
2. Sentimental personalization:
John stresses how “dear” Jullien is, accepted by all for his amiability and diligence. The center of gravity is human prestige and relational warmth, not the supernatural office.
3. Dignity without doctrinal mission:
The virtues attributed are generic: piety, modesty, affability, zeal in office. None are explicitly tied to the integral confession of the faith against modern errors. Nothing evokes Pius X’s *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi Dominici gregis*, which stigmatize precisely the intellectual and clerical currents that by 1962 are already ascendant.
4. Scriptural ornamentation as decor:
The brief citations—James 1:17, a phrase drawn from Maccabees—function only as pious decoration, detached from any combat against the reigning liberal and modernist assault. Scripture is used to bless the man, not to reassert the divine rights of Christ or the absolute necessity of the true faith for salvation and governance of the Church.
This language is the quintessential pre-conciliar mask of the conciliar revolution: a polished, devout, but emptied rhetoric that carefully avoids the burning doctrinal battlefronts which the authentic Magisterium had treated as non-negotiable.
Where Pius IX, in the Syllabus, names, condemns, and anathematizes the political and theological principles of liberalism, naturalism, indifferentism, and the subjection of the Church to the State; where Pius X, in *Lamentabili sane exitu*, systematically demolishes modernist reduction of dogma, Scripture, sacraments, and the Church; where Pius XI in *Quas primas* solemnly proclaims that true peace and social order are impossible without the public, juridical reign of Christ the King, John XXIII’s letter retreats into safe, institutional compliments.
This shift of rhetoric is itself a doctrinal signal. *Lex orandi, lex credendi*; likewise, *lex loquendi* reveals *lex credendi*. When the so‑called supreme shepherd ceases to speak the language of combat against error and instead anoints functionaries with bland praises, the message is clear: the era of militancy is being replaced by “dialogue,” benevolent neutrality, and soon, capitulation.
Contrast with Pre-1958 Magisterium: The Missing Note of Militant Supernaturalism
Measured against the pre-1958 doctrinal standard, several absences are theologically decisive.
1. Silence on the duty of resistance to error:
Authentic popes consistently reminded cardinals and bishops of their primary obligation: to guard and defend the deposit of faith. Pius X’s anti-modernist campaign was not optional but integral: he imposed the Anti-Modernist Oath, condemned named propositions in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*, and targeted precisely those clerical elites whose “scientific” and “pastoral” refinements cloaked apostasy.
Here, Jullien is praised as a jurist and administrator, not as a defender of dogma. By omission, the essential dimension of his office is erased.
2. Silence on the objective crisis:
Already by 1962, the doctrinal and liturgical disintegration is historically attested: biblical criticism against inspiration and inerrancy, ecumenical relativism, religious liberty theories explicitly condemned by the Syllabus and Leo XIII, early schemata for council documents that would later be overturned under pressure from the progressive bloc. An integral Catholic pontiff could not reasonably write to a senior cardinal without anchoring his praise in fidelity to the anti-modernist encyclicals and in readiness to resist the enemies Pius IX called the “synagogue of Satan”.
Instead, John XXIII speaks as if the Church were peacefully flourishing, as if his curial jurist simply crowns a well-ordered system, when in fact the foundations are being prepared for demolition.
3. Absence of the Kingship of Christ:
Pius XI, in *Quas primas*, teaches unambiguously that peace and order come only through the social reign of Christ; states must recognize His law publicly, and the Church must demand this. Yet John XXIII’s text is entirely private, horizontal, and apolitical in the true Catholic sense: no reminder that the jurist-cardinal must defend the rights of Christ and His Church against secular usurpation and Masonic conspiracies that Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius XI denounced by name.
This omission is consistent with the conciliar move toward religious liberty, the cult of human dignity detached from Christ, and practical acceptance of laicism condemned as an error in the Syllabus (proposition 55).
4. Reduction of the Apostolic Blessing:
The “Apostolic Blessing” here is used as a ceremonial flourish, disconnected from the strong note of authority and judgment that belonged to the true Papacy. Integral Catholic teaching presents the Pope as *supreme judge of the faithful, defender of the deposit, terror of heretics*, not as a smiling officiant giving protocolary benedictions to technocrats who will calmly assist in proceduralizing the revolution.
The blessing bestowed by one who convokes a council that will institutionalize condemned doctrines (religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, the cult of man) is an empty shell: the sign without the substance.
Theological Diagnosis: Fruits of the Conciliar Revolution in Embryo
From the perspective of the perennial doctrine, this letter is symptomatic of deeper errors tied to John XXIII and the conciliar project.
1. Implicit acceptance of the new ecclesiology
The text breathes an understanding of the Church as a self-sufficient institution of competent, amiable administrators, not as a militant, supernatural society whose hierarchy exists to preach uncompromised truth and condemn error.
This anticipates the conciliar and post-conciliar reconfiguration:
– From a Church which, as Pius IX insisted, is a *vera et perfecta societas* (true and perfect society) endowed with rights from Christ and superior to the State in spiritual matters (Syllabus, propositions 19, 55).
– To a “Church of the New Advent,” conceived as a partner among others in dialogue with the world, where cardinals and canonists become facilitators of aggiornamento rather than guardians of the ramparts.
Jullien is praised precisely not as a lion against liberalism, but as a capable cog in the system that will soon produce religious freedom, ecumenism, and liturgical destruction.
2. Human-centered praise vs. God-centered judgment
The entire letter exemplifies the inversion condemned by the pre-conciliar popes: the subtle cult of man, the prioritization of subjective virtues and courteous relations over objective fidelity to Christ’s rights.
Where Pius X saw “the synthesis of all heresies” in Modernism’s exaltation of religious experience, evolution of dogma, and subordination of doctrine to life, John XXIII’s rhetoric prepares the ambiance in which those very tendencies can thrive: no mention of the Anti-Modernist Oath, no warning against condemned propositions, only a tranquil trust in human qualities within the Curia.
This absence is not accidental; it is the necessary linguistic medium for the coming doctrinal surrender.
3. Discontinuity with the anti-Masonic, anti-liberal teaching
The Syllabus and subsequent papal texts explicitly condemn secret societies, liberalism, and the pretension that the State is the source of rights (proposition 39), or that the Roman Pontiff can reconcile with “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” understood as emancipation from Christ (proposition 80).
Integral doctrine demands constant vigilance against those forces. Yet this letter, in the heat of the 1960s upheaval, is utterly silent. The cardinal jurist is praised without reference to his duty to oppose these condemned trends, at the very moment when those trends are being quietly enthroned inside the structures that still bear Catholic names.
The dissonance between the prior papal condemnations and John XXIII’s self-satisfied tone is the dissonance between the true Church and the emerging conciliar sect.
Symptomatic Level: The Gentle Face of Apostasy
One might object that it is unjust to draw sweeping conclusions from a short congratulatory letter. This objection collapses under closer scrutiny.
1. Papal acts are never purely private:
When one presented as supreme pastor addresses a cardinal in official form, dated and archived, this is an act of office. Its omissions and emphases have ecclesial significance.
2. Context defines meaning:
This letter appears one week after the opening of Vatican II. John XXIII has already rejected the integral preparatory schemata that would have reaffirmed anti-modernist doctrine, in favor of a “pastoral” council oriented to optimism, dialogue, and accommodation. In this light, a text that extols a curial jurist without a word about guarding the deposit serves as a microcosm of the new orientation.
3. The method of gentle corrosion:
The conciliar revolution did not begin with flagrant denials in official short letters. It began with exactly such moves: soft language, suppressing condemnations, praising persons for administrative competence and “openness,” re-framing authority in affective rather than doctrinal terms.
The authentic Magisterium teaches that error spreads first by silence where one must speak, and by praise where one must warn. This letter is a polished example of such silence and misplaced praise.
4. Preparation of future complicity:
By idealizing the curial technocrat as a model prelate without reference to his supernatural responsibilities, John XXIII blesses the very class that would prove docile instruments for the implementation of post-conciliar novelties: liturgical revolution, ecumenical betrayal, religious liberty, and doctrinal relativism.
Under integral Catholic doctrine, these would all have been recognized as violations of prior definitions and condemnations, and the architects would have lost their office by public heresy (*ipso facto*, as articulated by classical theologians and reflected in 1917 CIC can. 188.4).
Instead, they were pampered, promoted, and confirmed by a rhetoric indistinguishable from this letter.
Reasserting the Pre-Conciliar Standard Against the Conciliar Drift
Against the background of this text, the true Catholic conscience must recall:
– *Non est pax impiis* (there is no peace for the wicked). Papal words of benign goodwill divorced from doctrinal militancy deceive souls when they are uttered at the threshold of revolution.
– The Popes before 1958 bound consciences to reject religious indifferentism, liberalism, and all forms of Modernism. No subsequent “pastoral tone” can rescind or relativize those obligations.
– *Quas primas* demands the public, juridical reign of Christ the King over nations and laws, not merely devout wishes for individual happiness.
– *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi* condemn the transformation of theology into a flexible, experience-based construct, the very spirit that animated Vatican II and its aftermath.
– The Syllabus explicitly rejects the proposition that the Roman Pontiff “can and ought to reconcile himself and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” understood as emancipation from the Church.
This letter of John XXIII harmonizes perfectly with the condemned proposition: it shows the “pope” as a benevolent father of the curia, a man eager to present a smiling face to the world, refusing to speak or act in the language of anathema, content with mutual compliments in the shadow of an approaching storm.
From the standpoint of integral Catholic faith, such a stance is not a harmless style but a betrayal. A shepherd who, on the eve of wolves entering the fold, praises his gatekeepers only for their politeness and procedural skill, and says nothing of vigilance, weapons, and blood, has already chosen his side.
Source:
Octogesimum natalem – Ad Andream S. R. E. Cardinalem Jullien, octogesimum diem natalem acturum (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025