This Latin circular letter, issued by antipope John XXIII on 15 April 1962, is addressed individually to all residential bishops in view of the imminent opening of Vatican II. It exhorts them to intensified prayer for the Council, to personal holiness, to confidence in divine grace amid pastoral burdens, and to Eucharistic and spiritual devotion, while praising their unity, zeal, and preparation for the coming assembly. Beneath its courteous tone, the text canonizes a new ecclesial consciousness ordered toward the conciliar revolution, subtly redefining episcopal holiness as enthusiastic collaboration with an event destined to mutilate the visible structures of the Church and enthrone the cult of man in place of the social Kingship of Christ.
Conciliar Piety as a Weaponized Mask: The Preparatory Letter of John XXIII
Episcopal Flattery as a Tool of Revolution
From the opening lines, John XXIII frames Vatican II as a universally awaited “gravissimus eventus,” calling for special supplication to the Holy Ghost, and congratulates the clergy and bishops for their prayers and preparations.
In English, he affirms, then in Latin:
“All indeed see how necessary it is that, the more the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council approaches, the more fervently the Christian faithful should implore the Holy Spirit the Paraclete…”;
Omnes sane vident oportere prorsus, quo magis admoveatur Concilium Oecumenicum Vaticanum II, eo incensiore pietate christifideles Spiritui Sancto Paraclito supplicent…
On the factual level, this is a carefully constructed fiction:
– It presupposes that an ecumenical council convoked by a manifestly doctrinally suspect figure (Roncalli), steeped in modernist networks previously condemned under St. Pius X’s Pascendi and Lamentabili sane exitu, is automatically a work of the Holy Ghost. This is an inversion of Catholic principle. The Church teaches that the Holy Ghost assists the Church in fidelity to the already revealed deposit, not in engineering novelties condemned by previous popes. Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors explicitly rejects the very program that Vatican II would promote: religious liberty (propositions 15–18, 77–80), separation of Church and State (55), subjection of doctrine to “progress” (5, 58, 80).
– Holiness and prayer are subtly harnessed, not to defend the immutable faith, but to render bishops spiritually disarmed before an agenda not yet openly specified, but already prepared in schemas and alliances of theologians imbued with precisely those errors solemnly proscribed in 1907 and 1864.
Linguistically, the letter is saturated with paternal flattery: “Venerable Brother most beloved by Us,” “paternal embrace,” “mirandum illud unitatis spectaculum.” This rhetoric creates a closed emotional universe: to be docile toward the Council is to be pious, obedient, grateful; any hesitation is implicitly resistance to the Holy Ghost.
This is a classic revolutionary technique: baptize the future break with Tradition as the supreme act of fidelity to Tradition. The bishops are maneuvered into perceiving prior magisterium through the prism of an event which will in fact contradict it.
Theologically, the key perversion lies in silently replacing the objective rule of faith with sentimental attachment to a process. Nowhere does John XXIII remind the bishops that their first duty is to guard the deposit of faith (depositum custodi, 1 Tim 6:20) against novelties—a constant theme in pre-1958 teaching. St. Pius X condemns the idea that dogma evolves with historical consciousness, yet the entire conciliar project (as history has proven) will be precisely that.
What is omitted here accuses more loudly than what is said:
– No mention of the obligation to condemn modernism by name, though Pius X called it “the synthesis of all heresies” and bound consciences to oppose it.
– No warning against religious liberty, false ecumenism, collegiality against papal primacy, democracy in the Church, all of which were already pushed by the same currents that promoted Roncalli.
– No assertion that the coming Council must reaffirm the Syllabus, Quanta Cura, Pascendi, Mortalium Animos, Quas Primas, nor any indication that these are non-negotiable doctrinal bulwarks.
Instead, the bishops are urged to approach the Council as an occasion above all for their own “holiness” expressed as availability and enthusiasm for its work. This redefines sanctity as alignment with a new orientation.
Sentimental Holiness without Doctrinal Militant Spirit
The letter insists repeatedly that bishops should prepare for the Council “potissimum vitae sanctimonia,” by personal holiness, prayer, Eucharistic devotion, patience in trials. In itself, this language echoes authentic Catholic spirituality. But the context and omissions are decisive.
He cites 2 Corinthians 6 to encourage acceptance of hardships, and invokes St. Ignatius of Antioch on obedience to the bishop, highlighting episcopal dignity:
Omnes Episcopo obtemperate, ut Iesus Christus Patri… Separatim ab Episcopo nemo quidquam faciat eorum quae ad Ecclesiam spectant.
Notice the maneuver:
– Ignatian exhortations to obey the true bishop, who is faithful to apostolic doctrine, are appropriated to bind obedience to bishops as instruments of a coming program that will undermine that doctrine.
– The true logic of Ignatius—unity in the truth of faith and Eucharistic sacrifice—is suppressed; what remains is bare hierarchical sentiment, soon to be redirected toward the conciliar and post-conciliar machinery.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, sanctity is inseparable from the confession and defense of unchanging doctrine, even against erring prelates. The martyrs, the Fathers, the anti-Arian bishops did not sanctify themselves by “fitting in” with subversive assemblies, but by resisting them.
Here:
– No call to defend the true Most Holy Sacrifice against liturgical subversion.
– No call to guard seminarians and theologians from condemned errors.
– No call to reaffirm the condemnation of secret societies and masonry, which Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius XII identified as masterminds of the attack on the Church.
– No reference to the social Kingship of Christ as dogmatically articulated in Quas Primas, though Pius XI explicitly links peace and order to the public recognition of Christ’s reign and condemns secularism and liberalism that Vatican II will be used to legitimize.
Instead, there is a soft, non-combative spirituality—“gentle,” private, de-dogmatized—and an irenic picture of an already flourishing Church:
“In these days one can see the one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church flourishing with most ample authority among all, standing out by the very firm unity of the same faith…”
This rose-tinted description, on the eve of an unprecedented internal doctrinal collapse, is either blindness or deliberate anesthesia. It contradicts the diagnoses of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII, who exposed the infiltration of liberalism, naturalism, and masonry and their war against Christ’s rights in society and in the Church.
The gravest spiritual crime here is the systematic silence:
– Silence about hell, judgment, and the danger of damnation for error.
– Silence about the gravity of heresy and the duty to expel it.
– Silence about the obligation of states to submit to Christ the King, replaced by a neutral depiction of nations merely “awaiting” the Council.
– Silence about the powers of darkness specifically manipulating Church and nations—explicitly unmasked by pre-1958 popes.
A sanctity preached without doctrinal militancy is a counterfeit sanctity. Veritas sine caritate ferit, caritas sine veritate fallit (“Truth without charity wounds; charity without truth deceives”). John XXIII’s letter offers charity without truth, deployed to sedate resistance.
The Pseudo-Mysticism of Vatican II as “New Pentecost”
A central motif is the appeal to the Holy Ghost; bishops are exhorted to draw more abundantly on the grace of Pentecost, of which they have the “pledge” through ordination, especially in view of the Council.
Key move: to present Vatican II as continuation and flowering of Pentecost, not as a moment which must be strictly scrutinized against the deposit of faith.
He writes of the need that, as the Council is prepared, bishops:
“draw more abundantly upon that divine grace of Pentecost poured down from heaven, the pledge of which they have received by imposition of hands.”
From Catholic doctrine before 1958:
– Pentecost is the sending of the Spirit of truth, Who brings to remembrance all that Christ taught (John 14:26), not a license to alter, silence, or relativize what He taught.
– The Magisterium is bound to guard, not reinvent, the deposit. Vatican I (Pastor Aeternus, Dei Filius) anathematizes those who claim the doctrine entrusted once for all to the saints can be reshaped according to modern philosophy or science.
St. Pius X explicitly condemns the modernist notion of “vital immanence” and the evolution of dogma, and in Lamentabili rejects the thesis that revelation continues or that dogmas are merely historical expressions of religious experience.
John XXIII, however, by his entire conciliar narrative (especially in his infamous opening address to Vatican II) promotes the idea that the Church must adapt her presentation, abandon the “prophets of doom,” and use the medicine of mercy rather than condemnation. This letter is a key prelude to that: it cultivates an affective expectation of a luminous “event” led by the Spirit, while carefully avoiding any reminder that the same Spirit has already spoken definitively against liberalism, indifferentism, rationalism, and modernism.
Thus the rhetoric of Pentecost is hijacked to legitimize what previous popes identified as the work of the same “synagogue of Satan” (Pius IX) and “sect of the Freemasons” that labors to subjugate the Church.
This deliberate equivocation is theologically deadly: Spiritus veritatis (Spirit of truth) is tacitly replaced with a spirit of aggiornamento, dialogue, democratization—all condemned in substance by the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
Subtle Redefinition of Episcopal Mission: From Guardians to Facilitators
Throughout the letter, John XXIII speaks of bishops as:
– “Apostles’ successors”
– “Images of the Good Shepherd”
– Burdened pastors to be comforted
– Participants with him in the Council’s task.
On the surface, this recalls traditional ecclesiology. Yet at the symptomatic level, one sees a shift:
1. The bishop is praised in his affective burdens: loneliness, lack of human consolers, weight of office.
2. He is encouraged to seek solace above all in prayer, Eucharistic devotion, and trust in God.
3. He is never exhorted to exercise his authority vigorously against doctrinal deviants, sacrilegious liturgical experiments, or naturalistic errors in his clergy and seminaries.
The letter repeatedly suggests that episcopal suffering is primarily psychological and circumstantial, rather than issuing from conflict with heresy and the world for Christ’s sake. The counsel is:
– Bear patiently.
– Seek comfort in the tabernacle.
– Prepare interiorly for the Council.
But where is the injunction to fight? To censure? To excommunicate wolves? To condemn false philosophies corrupting catechesis and preaching?
Pre-1958 doctrine is unequivocal:
– The bishop must be the vigilant guardian of doctrine and worship, correcting, suspending, and, if necessary, removing unfaithful clergy, in obedience to divine and canonical law.
– Pius X, in enforcing the anti-modernist oath (1910) and erecting vigilance councils, understood that bishops who refuse to act are themselves guilty.
John XXIII’s letter, instead, recasts their mission:
– The “success” of the Council is presented as the primary horizon.
– Their holiness is measured by their readiness to contribute to this event, not by their firmness in rejecting doctrinal novelties.
– The episcopate is sentimentalized and psychologized, disarmed against the conciliar “experts” who will soon drive the agenda.
This is not pastoral consolation; it is strategic neutralization.
Erasure of the Social Kingship of Christ in Favor of Conciliar Optimism
The text briefly refers, via Ephesians 5:27, to the Church as the spotless Bride of Christ, and calls bishops to help present her so to the world. But:
– It never mentions the obligation of nations to submit to Christ the King, so forcefully defined in Quas Primas.
– It never decries liberal laicism, religious indifferentism, or the dethronement of Christ from public life, which Pius XI identifies as the root of modern calamities.
– It offers instead an image of a Church already shining in authority and unity, without confronting the fact that governments—and, increasingly, intellectual elites and even Catholic institutions—are in open rebellion against Christ.
Pius XI teaches that peace will not come until states publicly recognize Christ’s reign, and condemns secularism as a plague. Pius IX’s Syllabus anathematizes the very principles of “religious freedom” and equality of cults that Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae would enshrine in practice.
John XXIII, in this letter:
– Prepares bishops to see the Council as the answer to the world’s expectation, but never frames that answer as the uncompromising public assertion of Christ’s sovereign rights.
– Prepares hearts for a “pastoral” council that will refuse to condemn the central errors of the age.
This silence is not accidental. It is the necessary prelude to the conciliar capitulation to modern liberalism, relativizing the unique claims of the Catholic Church and effectively setting aside Quas Primas and the Syllabus in practice.
Thus, under a veneer of Eucharistic piety, the letter assists in shifting the Church’s self-understanding:
– From Militant Church tasked to subjugate all things to Christ,
– To dialoguing institution seeking accommodation within secular pluralism.
Such a shift is materially incompatible with the pre-1958 Magisterium.
Appropriation of Traditional Piety to Legitimize the Conciliar Sect
The letter ends with:
– Invocation of Our Lady Help of Christians and Help of Bishops.
– Invocation of St. Joseph, entrusted with the upcoming Council.
– A prayer adapted from the Imitation of Christ for bishops to serve worthily and, if not innocent, at least penitent and humble.
All elements individually resonate with traditional spirituality. Yet precisely this makes the maneuver more insidious.
Key points:
– Marian and Eucharistic language is used as protective color for an operation whose concrete fruits (Vatican II documents, the new rites, the revolution in catechesis, morals, ecumenism, and Church-State relations) openly contradict prior Magisterium.
– Holy names and devotions serve as incense in a temple being gradually emptied of its true dogmatic content and refurnished with humanistic, Masonic-compatible ideals.
The pattern is consistent with earlier papal warnings:
– Pius IX and Leo XIII repeatedly identified secret societies that would attempt to infiltrate and manipulate the Church using Christian vocabulary while subverting doctrine and discipline.
– St. Pius X denounced those who hide modernism beneath traditional language, twisting formulas while emptying them of their Catholic sense.
This letter is a paradigm of that technique:
– It never enunciates heresy formally.
– It never attacks pre-conciliar doctrine directly.
– It prepares the psychology, language, and expectations needed to accept the upcoming conciliar rupture as “docile obedience to the Holy Spirit.”
That is precisely the “most pernicious” strategy condemned by St. Pius X: the enemy within, who “puts on the mask of piety and virtue” while undermining the foundations.
Systemic Fruits: From This Letter to the Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Apostasy
Seen in the light of subsequent history, the symptomatic significance of this document is unmistakable.
1. It forms part of a deliberate narrative:
– The Church is flourishing.
– The world “awaits” the Council.
– The Holy Ghost will guide an aggiornamento.
– Condemnatory weapons are sheathed.
2. It conditions bishops:
– To identify loyalty to John XXIII and to the Council as loyalty to Christ.
– To equate docility toward conciliar processes with holiness.
– To suspend defensive vigilance against doctrine-corrupting innovations.
3. Its silence prepares acceptance of:
– The reorientation toward religious liberty, condemned by Pius IX.
– Ecumenism that treats false religions as partial realizations of truth, condemned by Pius XI in Mortalium Animos.
– Liturgical revolution dismantling the visible expression of the propitiatory Sacrifice.
– Collegiality and democratization that erode papal supremacy as defined by Vatican I.
– A new anthropology and “rights of man” ideology replacing the primacy of God’s rights.
The conciliar sect now entrenched—the “Church of the New Advent,” the paramasonic structure occupying Rome—draws ideological lineage from precisely this kind of document: pious in idiom, revolutionary in trajectory, carefully devoid of the clear anti-liberal, anti-modernist, anti-masonic intransigence that characterized the integral Magisterium before 1958.
In sum:
– This letter is not an innocuous devotional exhortation.
– It is one piece in the architecture of the conciliar transformation, which replaced the Catholic religion in official structures with a humanistic counterfeit while retaining external forms.
Measured solely by pre-1958 doctrine—the only legitimate norm—the attitudes it inculcates are theologically and spiritually bankrupt:
– Holiness emptied of doctrinal combat.
– Obedience redirected from the perennial Magisterium to a novel “pastoral” event.
– Trust in the Holy Ghost invoked to sanctify what previous popes had condemned.
Lex credendi and lex orandi are manipulated so that bishops, clergy, and faithful pray earnestly for their own disarmament.
Conclusion: The Only Legitimate Criterion Remains the Immutable Tradition
Confronted with such a text, the integral Catholic conscience must:
– Reject the identification of Vatican II and its program with the will of the Holy Ghost.
– Recognize that John XXIII’s letter, under a veil of traditional language, systematically omits and neutralizes the uncompromising doctrinal stances of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– Judge the so-called “conciliar renewal” and its preparatory rhetoric by the immutable standards of the pre-1958 Magisterium.
The bishops and faithful who, in good faith, read such exhortations as an invitation to authentic sanctity were deceived by an operation that conflated devotion with submission to an impending doctrinal revolution. True obedience would have consisted, and still consists, in unwavering adherence to what the Church has always and everywhere taught—against all novelties, however piously packaged.
Source:
Omnes sane – Epistula ad singulos Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopos, adventante Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano II, d. 15 m. Aprilis a. 1962, Ioannes PP. XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025