The brief Latin letter “Quamvis religioso,” dated 9 February 1963 and signed by John XXIII, is a congratulatory note addressed to Ephraem Forni on the double jubilee of his episcopal consecration and priestly ordination. It rehearses the standard curial compliments: thanksgiving to God for graces received, praise for Forni’s diplomatic service as Apostolic Nuncio in Ecuador, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and his elevation to the “College of Cardinals”; it concludes with wishes for renewed zeal for “the glory of God and the salvation of souls” and an “Apostolic Blessing.” Beneath its polished Latinity, however, this text is an exquisitely revealing miniature of the conciliar revolution: a self-referential, bureaucratic liturgy of a paramasonic apparatus which invokes Catholic piety while silently presupposing a new religion and a new Church incompatible with the unchanging doctrine of Christ the King and the pre-1958 Magisterium.
A Courtly Benediction of Apostasy
From Catholic Epistolary Tradition to Neo-Church Panegyric
On the surface, the structure imitates traditional papal letters: invocation of divine benefits, citation of the Psalms and the Epistle of James, a pious pretext (anniversary), praise of merits, blessing. But the decisive question is: what precisely is being praised, in whose name, and in what ecclesiological framework?
Key elements of the letter, read in continuity with the known program of John XXIII and the conciliar upheaval he inaugurated, expose its underlying deformation:
1. Focal point of praise:
– Forni is extolled above all as a diplomat at the service of the “Apostolic See,” i.e. as a functionary of the very apparatus that was then launching the aggiornamento and the Second Vatican Council’s subversion of traditional doctrine.
– His “firm constancy” and “prudence” are celebrated not in the defense of the rights of Christ the King over nations, but in the smooth exercise of concordat-style, human-respectful diplomacy with secular regimes steeped in laicism and liberalism.
2. Self-legitimating mechanism:
– John XXIII recalls having rewarded him with the red hat: a closed circle of mutual recognition within a structure whose doctrinal trajectory was already condemned in substance by previous pontiffs (Pius IX’s Syllabus, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII).
– The letter thus functions as a ceremonial sealing of complicity: a system praising its own servants for their loyalty to its project.
3. Absence of Catholic specificity:
– No mention of the necessity of the integral Catholic faith for salvation.
– No affirmation of the unique, exclusive truth of the Catholic Church, no condemnation of indifferentist regimes or sects.
– No call to preach the Kingship of Christ publicly to nations, as demanded by Pius XI in Quas primas.
– No warning against the errors already rampant in the 1960s: Modernism, laicism, socialism, communalist subversion, Freemasonry—explicitly named and anathematized by Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X.
– The omission is not accidental: it is systematic and programmatic, the mark of a different religion.
In short, the letter’s genre has been hollowed out: Catholic vocabulary remains; Catholic substance is evacuated. The praise of a career diplomat in a conciliar apparatus replaces the proclamation of Christ’s absolute dominion and the integral defense of His Church.
Factual Inversions: Diplomatic Success versus the Kingship of Christ
On the factual level, the letter proposes a narrative of ecclesial fidelity that, measured by pre-1958 doctrine, is inverted.
1. The supposed “service to the Apostolic See”:
– John XXIII presents Forni’s work in Ecuador, Belgium, Luxembourg as exemplary. But what is the conciliar (and pre-conciliar-liberal) diplomatic model? It is the systematic acceptance of religious pluralism, the de facto renunciation of the Catholic State, the quiet collaboration with secular legislation contrary to Christ’s law.
– Pius IX in the Syllabus solemnly condemns propositions asserting:
– that the Church is subject to civil power in defining its rights (19–21),
– that the State may claim education and marriage as its sphere against the Church (45–48, 74),
– that the Church should be separated from the State (55),
– and that the Roman Pontiff can reconcile himself with “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (80).
– Yet the very “prudence” and “constancy” lauded here consist in navigating and accommodating such liberal orders instead of fighting them with the clarity of Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X.
2. Silence about the true function of a bishop:
– The letter makes no reference to Forni’s duty, as bishop, to preach the faith integre, condemn error, and defend the flock against wolves. He appears primarily as an administrator and emissary.
– St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi brands precisely this liberal, historical-critical, and relativizing mentality—soon to dominate the conciliar hierarchy—as “Modernism, the synthesis of all heresies”, and attaches excommunication to its defense. Yet John XXIII’s program rehabilitated and empowered those same currents.
3. The spurious continuity via pious phrases:
– The letter quotes Psalm 144(145):2 and James 1:17 to adorn its congratulations. But the order of reality is reversed: divine praise becomes ornament of human promotion, instead of human office being crushed, judged, and purified by the demands of divine Revelation.
– In the authentic Catholic order, any celebration of ecclesiastical jubilees is inseparable from examination: fidelity to dogma, resistance to error, courage before unjust States, zeal for the salvation of souls. Here, nothing is examined. All is approved.
Thus, on the factual plane, the letter paints a serene portrait of “fruitful” service in precisely those contexts where the conciliar sect would soon install its doctrines of religious liberty, ecumenism, and the dethronement of Christ the King—all anathematized in substance by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
Language as a Cloak: Courtly Euphemism and Self-Congratulation
The linguistic texture of “Quamvis religioso” is not neutral; it reveals a mentality.
1. Bureaucratic-sacral style:
– The rhetoric is solemn yet empty: “gravium munerum perfunctione deserviens,” “firma constantia, sedula officii conscientia, in gerendis rebus prudentia,” “sacro laticlavio honestavimus”.
– This is the language of a closed caste praising its own efficiency. The repeated emphasis is on functions, posts, promotions, and “merits” measured by institutional loyalty.
2. Absence of doctrinal precision:
– Terms such as “glory of God” and “salvation of souls” appear, but without any dogmatic contour. They can be—and in the conciliar context are—filled with naturalistic content: human dignity, social harmony, diplomatic success, “dialogue.”
– The letter lacks any concrete reference to:
– the need to combat heresy,
– the obligation to uphold the exclusive rights of the Catholic Church in public life,
– the reality of hell, judgment, and the supernatural stakes of episcopal negligence.
3. Tone of uncritical optimism:
– There is no sense of crisis, no awareness of the “enemies within” so gravely denounced by St. Pius X fighting Modernism.
– This naive or feigned optimism is itself a theological sign: it presupposes that the Church flourishes while in fact the doctrinal demolition is underway. It is the serene self-confidence of a structure that believes it can re-found Christianity on different principles.
Language here serves as velum erroris (a veil of error): maintaining the cadence of Catholic Latinity while erasing its polemical and dogmatic edge. Pius XI in Quas primas demanded public confession of Christ’s rights precisely against laicist silence; John XXIII’s letter, by contrast, models the laicist refinement: religion as harmless ornament of a diplomatic career.
Theological Subversion: A “Blessing” Without the True Church
The theological bankruptcy of this text becomes clear once we hold it against the pre-1958 doctrinal standard, taken as the sole norm.
1. Ecclesiology inverted:
– The entire letter presupposes that the structure over which John XXIII presides is simply the Catholic Church, and that entering its “College of Cardinals” is in itself a supernatural honor.
– But the same John XXIII initiated and presided over a council whose documents, implementation, and spirit:
– undermine the exclusive truth of the Catholic religion,
– praise a civil order built on religious liberty (condemned by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI),
– promote false ecumenism with heretics and schismatics,
– relativize the necessity of conversion to the Catholic Church,
– open the door to liturgical devastation and doctrinal ambiguity.
– Lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief): by blessing such a program and its agents, John XXIII’s acts manifest incompatibility with the previous Magisterium. A manifest promoter of condemned principles cannot be the guarantor of Catholic unity.
2. Naturalization of episcopal office:
– Forni is praised as a diplomatic technician. The supernatural gravitas of the episcopate—successor of the Apostles with authority to bind and loose, guardian of dogma—is silently translated into the vocabulary of international relations.
– Pius XI in Quas primas insists that rulers and nations are bound to publicly adore Christ and submit their laws to His Gospel. Here, the nuncio’s “prudence” is celebrated precisely as peaceful coexistence with States that deny this duty.
3. Silence on Modernism and Freemasonry:
– St. Pius X’s Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi condemn:
– the notion that dogma evolves with history,
– the reduction of Revelation to religious experience,
– the subjection of Scripture and doctrine to modern criticism,
– the project of reconciling the Church with liberal modernity.
– Pius IX vigorously unmasks the role of Masonic and similar sects as the organizing force of the war against the Church, showing how they infiltrate States, laws, and culture to eradicate the public reign of Christ.
– In 1963, these warnings were not obsolete; they were being fulfilled. Forni’s “prudence” in dealings with liberal regimes occurs within this battle. Yet John XXIII says nothing. This silence is itself an anti-confession: an implicit renunciation of the prophetic office.
4. False blessing:
– A genuine papal blessing presupposes Catholic faith, guards the flock against error, and is ordered to the increase of supernatural virtue.
– The “Apostolic Blessing” at the end of this letter is extended without any doctrinal admonition, as if perseverance in a system embracing condemned principles were in itself meritorious.
– Quod contra ius divinum fit, irritum est (what is done against divine law is null). A structure that canonizes religious liberty, ecumenism, and doctrinal relativism cannot dispense authentic apostolic blessings; its benedictions are at best empty formulas, at worst sacrilegious usurpations of divine authority.
Symptomatic of the Conciliar Sect: Self-Referentiality and Dethronement of Christ
This short letter condenses the pathology of the Church of the New Advent.
1. Autopoiesis of the conciliar elite:
– The system celebrates itself: Forni’s career is meritorious because it served that system; elevation to the red hat crowns this loyalty; the usurping head of the system confirms him.
– There is no criterion above the system: no reference to immutable doctrine which might judge diplomatic compromises, no hint that fidelity might sometimes require open conflict with secular power, as Pius IX and St. Pius X exemplified.
2. Marginalization of the supernatural:
– References to God, grace, glory, and salvation are generic, not doctrinally sharpened.
– Any concrete mention of:
– the Most Holy Sacrifice as propitiatory offering for sins,
– the need to combat erroneous philosophies and sects,
– the danger of eternal damnation for those who corrupt the faith,
is conspicuously absent.
– Silence concerning sin, judgment, and dogmatic exclusivity is the gravest accusation against an episcopal document. It indicates that the supernatural order is no longer the axis; it has been replaced by natural, diplomatic goals.
3. Inherent fruit of condemned liberalism:
– Pius IX’s Syllabus rejects the possibility of reconciling the Catholic Church with liberal modern civilization understood as religiously neutral, subjectivist, and anti-clerical. Pius X brands the attempt to re-interpret dogma in that sense as Modernism.
– “Quamvis religioso” exemplifies exactly that reconciliation in miniature: Catholic phrases united with liberal practice, truth reduced to polite insignificance.
– John XXIII’s ethos—“opening the windows,” “pastoral” style, abstention from condemnation—forms the psychological and institutional precondition of the subsequent avalanche: false ecumenism, interreligious cults, profanation of the sacraments, the cult of man.
4. Eclipse of the Kingship of Christ:
– Compare Pius XI’s thunder in Quas primas, insisting that civil laws, education, and public life must submit to Christ the King, with John XXIII’s epistolary flattery.
– There is no demand that Forni’s diplomacy should work for the public acknowledgement of Christ’s reign by nations. Instead, the text approves a model of nuncio whose task is coexistence, not conquest for Christ.
– This is not a minor stylistic nuance; it is a repudiation in practice of the social Kingship of Christ, thereby aligning with precisely those liberal theses previously condemned.
What Is Not Said: The Omitted Battle for Souls
The most damning elements of this letter are its omissions, which expose its alien spirit.
1. No mention of:
– the duty to resist heresy within the clergy;
– the perils of Modernist theology, already officially condemned;
– the corruption of liturgy and doctrine on the horizon;
– the necessity to keep nations and laws subject to the divine law.
2. No call to:
– preach to unbelievers and heretics their obligation to enter the one true Church;
– defend Catholic education and marriage against secular encroachments;
– confront the Masonic and revolutionary forces undermining Christian order.
3. No sign of:
– ascetical seriousness compatible with the episcopal office;
– fear of God’s judgment on negligent shepherds;
– awareness that an episcopal jubilee without fidelity to dogma is a liability, not a triumph.
This silence is not merely a personal defect; it is systemic, the articulus stantis et cadentis of the conciliar system: a “church” that speaks incessantly of man, history, dialogue, and rights, and almost never of those hard supernatural truths without which the Cross and the Most Holy Sacrifice become incomprehensible.
Conclusion: From Curial Compliment to Manifestation of a New Religion
“Quamvis religioso” is short, but the spirit it breathes is vast—and alien to the integral Catholic faith. It is:
– a self-referential encomium of a diplomatic apparatus that has traded the militant confession of Christ the King for coexistence with liberal States;
– a theological vacuum dressed in classical Latin, where dogma is assumed but never wielded as a sword against error;
– a micro-manifesto of the conciliar sect’s modus operandi: maintain the forms, evacuate the substance, bless the agents of transformation, and never remind them that the immutable Magisterium before 1958 stands in judgment over their “pastoral” experiments.
When weighed against Pius IX’s Syllabus, St. Pius X’s anti-Modernist decrees, and Pius XI’s proclamation of the Kingship of Christ, this letter is not an innocuous courtesy; it is a symptom and instrument of that systemic apostasy which enthrones man, neutralizes doctrine, and buries the royal rights of Our Lord under diplomatic flattery. Whoever still believes that such texts emanate from the same theological organism as the pre-1958 Church must close his eyes to the evidence: here we see, in miniature, not the Bride of Christ speaking, but the smooth voice of a neo-church patting its functionaries on the back while leading countless souls away from the narrow path defined once for all by the true Catholic Magisterium.
Source:
Quamvis a religioso – Epistula ad Ephraem tit. S. Crucis in Hierusalem S. R. E. Presbyterum Cardinalem Forni, a suscepta episcopali dignitate quinque implentem lustra, decem autem lustra celebraturum … (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025