John XXIII’s Cultic Exploitation of St. Pius X as Modernist Legitimization
The document “Primo exacto” (29 March 1959) is a brief Latin letter in which John XXIII appoints Giovanni Urbani, Patriarch of Venice, as his legate for solemn celebrations in Venice in honor of St. Pius X, on the centenary of Pius X’s priestly ordination and on the occasion of the temporary transfer of the saint’s relics from St. Peter’s Basilica to the Basilica of St. Mark. John XXIII effusively praises St. Pius X as a vigilant pastor and faithful dispenser of the mysteries of God, approves and extols the planned festivities, symbolically associates himself with them through his legate, and grants a plenary indulgence to the faithful under the usual conditions.
This seemingly pious text is in fact a calculated act of symbolic manipulation: an early and telling attempt by the architect of the conciliar revolution to cloak his coming betrayal of Pius X’s anti-modernist legacy with the saint’s stolen halo.
Instrumentalizing a Pope of Anti-Modernism to Sanitize the Conciliar Project
On the factual level, the letter appears innocuous: a courteous papal missive designating a legate, extolling a canonized predecessor, and attaching indulgences to a public veneration of his relics.
But precisely here the perversion emerges.
– John XXIII, the initiator of the so‑called Second Vatican Council and thus the starting point of the conciliar sect, publicly embraces the memory of the very Pope who most forcefully crushed Modernism through Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi Dominici gregis, and who imposed the Anti-Modernist Oath and condemned the evolution of dogma, religious indifferentism, and historical relativism.
– The letter presents Pius X merely as a “vigilant pastor” and “faithful dispenser of the mysteries” admired by Venetians and Mantuan people, but totally silences his doctrinal war against Modernism, his uncompromising reassertion of the full rights of the Church against Liberalism, his condemnation of false biblical criticism, and his exposure of pseudo-mystical and pseudo-charismatic deceivers.
– The whole act neatly functions as a subtle captatio benevolentiae (“winning of good will”): before unleashing the conciliar aggiornamento, John XXIII wraps himself in the mantle of St. Pius X to disarm resistance and suggest continuity where rupture is already being prepared.
This is the classic modernist tactic that St. Pius X himself unmasked: “They put their designs for the ruin of the Church in practice not from without but from within” (paraphrase of Pascendi). John XXIII’s gesture is a liturgical and devotional variant of that same fraud: exploiting a canonized anti-modernist to lubricate the acceptance of the very Modernism he condemned.
The Gentle Poison of Sentimental Language
On the linguistic level, the rhetoric of the letter is revealing.
1. The tone is drenched in sweet sentimentality and “tender remembrance”:
– “imago suavissima sancti Nostri Praedecessoris” – “the most sweet image of Our holy Predecessor”
– “ineffabili animi commotione perfundimur” – “we are filled with an ineffable emotion”
2. There is an emphasis on affect, nostalgia, and local attachment: Venice, Mantua, popular veneration, external solemnities, an edifying cult of memory.
3. At the same time, there is studied silence regarding:
– heresy,
– Modernism,
– the inexorable demands of doctrine,
– the Anti-Modernist Oath,
– the authority of prior condemnations,
– the true nature of the papal office as guardian against novelty and liberalism.
The style is that of polished, courtly bureaucracy sprinkled with pious adjectives, precisely the tone that anesthetizes doctrinal vigilance. It exemplifies what St. Pius X condemned: those who speak warmly of Catholic symbols while dissolving their dogmatic content. The letter’s language avoids any sharp doctrinal edge; it replaces the militant clarity of the pre‑1958 Magisterium with a saccharine, atmospherical spirituality.
This is not harmless decoration. Language forms minds. By reducing St. Pius X to a benign figure of “pastoral vigilance” and “local devotion,” John XXIII performs a semantic decapitation: the very Pope who declared Modernism “the synthesis of all heresies” is converted into a neutral emblem that can be used to adorn the opposite project.
Theological Subversion: Veneration Without the Doctrine of the Saint
On the theological level, the most serious issue is not what is said about indulgences or relics, but what is systematically omitted.
The letter:
– Encourages solemn cult around the relics of St. Pius X.
– Grants a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions.
– Affirms his example as “faithful dispenser of the mysteries.”
Yet it entirely circumvents the central, non-negotiable content of Pius X’s pontificate:
1. No mention of his condemnation of Modernism.
– Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi are left in total eclipse.
– No reminder that those who reject these anti-modernist documents incur condemnation; instead, the author of this letter is already preparing a council that will tacitly bury them.
2. No reference to doctrinal immutability.
– Pius X fought the very idea that dogma “evolves” with history.
– Yet John XXIII, soon after this letter, promotes an aggiornamento that will operationalize precisely such evolution under euphemisms (pastoral development, reading the “signs of the times”), the exact positions pre‑1958 Magisterium had repeatedly anathematized (cf. Syllabus of Errors, especially 5, 58–60, 80).
3. No insistence on the binding force of prior condemnations.
– Genuine Catholic continuity would require that any commemoration of Pius X publicly reaffirm his doctrinal decrees against Modernism, liberal exegesis, and syncretism.
– Instead, there is only ceremonial exaltation and sentimental recollection, the liturgical shell without the doctrinal kernel.
This silence is not neutral. Qui tacet, consentire videtur (“He who is silent is seen to consent”) – here, silence about the doctrinal sword of Pius X functions as consent to its sheathing. By praising Pius X only as a pious pastor, John XXIII attempts a selective appropriation: keep the relics and popular cult, discard the anti-modernist content.
Such manipulation is precisely the inversion of the true Catholic principle articulated authoritatively before 1958: the Church’s worship and cult of saints serve to confirm and defend dogma, not to camouflage its betrayal.
From the Reign of Christ the King to Cultic Cosmetics
The letter must also be weighed against the doctrinal axis taught by prior Popes such as Pius IX and Pius XI.
– Pius IX, in the Syllabus Errorum, condemned:
– religious indifferentism,
– subordination of the Church to the State,
– liberalism and false “modern civilization” divorced from Christ’s law (especially errors 15–18, 55, 77–80).
– Pius XI in Quas Primas declared that true peace and order are only possible under the public and social reign of Christ the King; secularist laicism is stigmatized as a betrayal that must be opposed, not blessed.
In “Primo exacto,” we see:
– No reaffirmation that St. Pius X defended immutabile doctrina (unchangeable doctrine) against Liberal Catholicism.
– No reminder that his anti-modernist measures bind all time, as protections of the deposit of faith.
– Only a localized, folkloric magnification of an external cult: solemnities, transfer of relics, an indulgence.
This is the reduction of the Church’s mission from a supernatural, doctrinally armed defense of Christ’s Kingship to a decorative sacral veneer on an emerging anthropocentric, dialogical, liberalized religion.
Such a move constitutes a practical denial of what Pius XI had just underlined three decades earlier: that public and social submission to Christ the King and to His unchangeable law is essential, and the Church must “never reconcile with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” understood as emancipation from divine authority (cf. condemned proposition 80 in the Syllabus).
Yet John XXIII’s entire pontificate, heralded quietly here, will proceed on that exact reconciliation: replacing Christus Rex with “man,” doctrine with “dialogue,” anathema with applause.
The Symptom of a Deeper Treason: Saints as Shields for Apostasy
On the symptomatic level, this letter exemplifies a fundamental mechanism of the conciliar sect: exploit authentic pre‑1958 saints and symbols precisely to neutralize their teaching and to create the illusion of continuity.
Key symptoms:
1. Appropriation without obedience.
– St. Pius X is invoked and displayed; his relics are processed.
– But there is no call to maintain his anti-modernist measures; those measures will soon be practically abandoned.
– This mimics the way the post‑1958 structures later paraded the name of St. Pius X while canonizing those who push evolution of doctrine, false ecumenism, and religious liberty.
2. Substitution of sacramental seriousness with theatricality.
– An indulgence is attached to the celebration: externally Catholic.
– But indulgences presuppose the true Church, true jurisdiction, and fidelity to the integral faith; they cannot be instrumentalized by one preparing a program that contradicts prior condemnations.
– Here, indulgence language functions like liturgical cosmetics concealing a cancer.
3. Erasure of the anti-modernist hermeneutic.
– By presenting Pius X primarily as a beloved pastor of Venice, the universal doctrinal role of his anti-modernist magisterium is relativized into local piety.
– His historical mission as hammer of Modernism is put under a bushel, so the conciliar agenda can proceed without overt contradiction.
This dynamic is not accidental; it is the operational method of the structures occupying the Vatican: retain Catholic words and images, invert their content, and persecute or marginalize anyone who insists on the original meaning defined before 1958.
Contradiction with the Anti-Modernist Mandate of St. Pius X
Bring the analysis into sharp doctrinal collision.
St. Pius X:
– Condemned as erroneous and often heretical the propositions that:
– The Magisterium cannot define the sense of Scripture with authority.
– Dogmas are products of historical evolution and religious consciousness.
– The Church must adapt to modern thought and relativize prior judgments.
– Revelation continues and mutates in the experience of the community.
– Imposed an Anti-Modernist Oath binding clergy and teachers to:
– Affirm the immutability of dogma.
– Reject historical relativism.
– Submit fully to the prior teaching of the Church.
John XXIII, by program and by subsequent actions (most notably convoking the council that would enthrone the very tendencies condemned by his canonized predecessor), stands in objective opposition to this mandate.
In that light, “Primo exacto” is the first act in a moral and theological imposture:
– He publicly venerates the saint whose principles he is preparing to disarm.
– He uses the prestige of that saint to grant a veneer of continuity and trust to his own revolution.
There is no authentic Catholic coherence in invoking St. Pius X without reaffirming:
– that Modernism remains “the synthesis of all heresies,”
– that its proponents and apologists are to be resisted and condemned,
– that dogma admits no reversal or dilution in the name of “pastoral” accommodation.
The letter’s failure to do so precisely at a key centenary and solemn translation exposes it as calculated: an operation of psychological conditioning, not an act of obedience to the saint.
Silence on the Real Enemies: Modernists and Masonic Sectarianism
Integral Catholic teaching prior to 1958, as expressed in Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X and others, identifies:
– the Masonic and liberal sects as the great external and internal enemies of the Church (see the closing section of the Syllabus text, which directly links the pervasive persecution of the Church to Masonic machinations);
– Modernism as the internal, intellectual decomposition that dissolves faith from within.
“Primo exacto” says nothing about:
– the ongoing threats against the faith,
– the subversion of seminaries,
– the infiltration of Modernist ideas,
– the need for renewed application of Pius X’s condemnations to protect clergy and faithful.
Instead, its horizon is purely celebratory, almost touristic: a pious event, a transfer of relics, an indulgence, a pleasant confirmation of religious sentiment.
This silence about the real supernatural battle is damning:
– Silentium de novissimis (silence about last things) and about the doctrinal struggle typically accompanies the emergence of naturalistic, humanitarian “Christianity” that Pius XI in Quas Primas and St. Pius X in Pascendi warned against.
– The letter embodies the mentality that will quickly lead to dialogue with error instead of its condemnation, to reconciliation with “modern civilization” instead of its judgment by the law of Christ the King.
If St. Pius X had written on his own centenary, he would have thundered against the renewal of Modernist errors and demanded stricter observance of his decrees. John XXIII gives us instead a harmless postcard.
The Cult Without Conversion: A Warning to the Faithful
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, one must draw several unequivocal conclusions about a text such as this.
1. External veneration of a saint is worthless, even sacrilegious, when severed from fidelity to his doctrine.
– The conciliar sect’s exploitation of Pius X’s image, while undermining his anti-modernist legacy, constitutes an abuse of the communion of saints.
– Lex orandi, lex credendi (“the law of prayer is the law of belief”): to invoke in liturgy a saint whose principles are betrayed is to corrupt both prayer and belief.
2. The letter reveals a deliberate strategy of counterfeit continuity.
– Celebrate pre‑1958 saints in a selective, sentimental manner.
– Avoid mention of their condemnations which contradict the conciliar agenda.
– Offer indulgences and solemnities as tokens, diverting attention from doctrinal rupture.
3. Modernist “clerics” are thereby unmasked as usurpers, not guardians, of Tradition.
– True authority in the Church is intrinsically bound to guarding the deposit of faith exactly as received.
– To instrumentalize St. Pius X while preparing to undermine his bulwarks is to demonstrate a lack of that authority in act, regardless of claim.
4. The faithful must measure such documents solely by pre‑1958 doctrine.
– Pius IX’s Syllabus, St. Pius X’s anti-modernist decrees, and Pius XI’s proclamation of Christ’s Kingship remain binding reference points.
– Any text, however devout it may sound, that evades, dilutes, or silently contradicts them is to be rejected as an expression of the conciliar anti-doctrine.
This letter, therefore, is not a harmless historical curiosity; it is a signpost at the threshold of the great post‑1958 usurpation: the saint of anti-modernism held up like a painted shield before the advancing army of Modernism.
Source:
Primo exacto – Ad Ioannem Tit. Sanctae Priscae S. R. E. presbyterum Cardinalem Urbani, Venetiarum Patriarcham, qui legatus deligitur ad Sollemnia in honorem S. Pii Papae X celebranda, sacris eius exuv… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025