At the surface level, this brief Latin letter of John XXIII to Aloisius Traglia is a congratulatory note for the twenty-fifth anniversary of his episcopal consecration. John XXIII recalls Traglia’s curial service, his role as vicar in Rome, his presidency over the episcopal council coordinating Catholic Action and lay apostolate in Italy, and he showers him with praise for his doctrine, diligence, amiability, and usefulness to the “Church,” ending with a blessing. Beneath this seemingly harmless courtesy lies the distilled program of the conciliar sect: the substitution of supernatural mission with bureaucratic careerism, the exaltation of human qualities over Catholic militancy, and the quiet enthronement of the emerging lay-centered, naturalistic neo-church that would soon be unleashed at Vatican II.
Hollow Panegyric as Manifesto of an Earthly, Bureaucratic Religion
From Apostolic Office to Curial Careerism and Political Management
The very structure of the letter reveals its core: not Christ, not the Cross, not the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary*, not the salvation of souls, but the celebration of an ecclesiastical functionary.
John XXIII addresses Traglia as one who, by curial posts and vicariate functions, has “greatly merited” for the Church. The text (in substance):
We desire to be present with you in mind and thought… we are eager to offer you happy omens, praises and congratulations. … In your teaching, diligence, zeal, and as Our Cardinal Vicar and President of the Episcopal Council for moderating Catholic Action and the lay apostolate in Italy, you have greatly deserved of the Church.
No mention of the bishop as *successor of the Apostles* primarily charged with guarding the deposit of faith (*depositum fidei custodiendum,* cf. Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, and the perennial theologians). No insistence on his duty to defend the flock from heresy, to preach the integral faith, to uphold the kingship of Christ in society. Instead:
– Emphasis on:
– “offices fulfilled in the Roman Curia,”
– “Cardinal Provicar in the City,”
– “President of the Episcopal Council for moderating Catholic Action and the lay apostolate in Italy.”
This language betrays a transformation of episcopal ministry into:
– Administrative management,
– Political coordination of lay structures,
– Human respect and conciliatory demeanor.
Where the pre-1958 Magisterium (e.g. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII) spoke with fire about:
– defending doctrine,
– condemning Modernism,
– rejecting liberalism, naturalism, Socialism, Freemasonry (cf. Syllabus of Errors; Lamentabili; Pascendi; numerous allocutions),
John XXIII here glorifies a man precisely for his role in restructuring those very means (Catholic Action, lay apostolate) that would be weaponized to dissolve Catholic public life into democratic-humanitarian activism.
This is not accidental rhetoric; it is a programmatic shift.
Linguistic Cult of Personality and the Eclipse of the Supernatural
The letter is saturated with sentimental flattery and entirely devoid of supernatural seriousness:
– “pious joys”
– “wreath of happy omens”
– “esteem in which you flourish with Us”
– “sweetness of soul”
– “kindness of manners”
– “pleasant grace of eloquent speech”
These are the criteria of praise. Not:
– zeal for dogma,
– hatred of error,
– readiness to suffer for truth,
– insistence on the social reign of Christ the King.
Pius XI in Quas primas (1925.12.11) teaches that there is no true peace nor order unless individuals and states recognize and submit to the kingship of Christ; he denounces laicism and the dethronement of Our Lord as the root of modern calamities. There, the emphasis is:
– on the objective rights of Christ,
– on the obligation of rulers and nations,
– on public, militant confession of the true faith.
In John XXIII’s letter:
– Rome is mentioned sentimentally, as a place where “ancient Christian piety” is to be fostered — but only in a vague devotional key.
– There is no assertion that the Eternal City must be subject publicly to Christ the King, no condemnation of secular apostasy, no warning against the enemies of the Church, including the very paramasonic currents then permeating Italian political and ecclesiastical life.
This silence is itself a doctrinal statement. *Qui tacet consentire videtur* (he who is silent appears to consent) when the shepherds omit precisely what their office demands.
Absence of Dogma as Positive Program: The Modernist Method
Measured against the pre-1958 standard, the omissions of this letter are damning.
According to the integral Catholic faith:
– A bishop’s dignity and merit are determined principally by:
– adherence to and defense of defined dogma,
– fidelity to the Holy Sacrifice and true sacraments,
– rejection of heresy,
– promotion of the social kingship of Christ as taught by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII.
– A pontifical letter of praise, especially from Rome to a Roman vicar, ought to:
– reaffirm these supernatural priorities,
– call to vigilance against error,
– insist on the primacy of grace over human organization.
Instead, John XXIII’s rhetoric:
– suppresses any reference to:
– the inerrant Magisterium condemning Modernism (*Lamentabili sane exitu*, 1907; *Pascendi*, 1907),
– Freemasonry’s war on the Church (consistently denounced by Popes from Clement XII through Leo XIII and Pius IX, whose teaching, appended in the provided Syllabus extract, explicitly unmasks the “synagogue of Satan” and its sects),
– the absolute falsity of indifferentism and liberal “rights” against the Church.
– presents a purely naturalistic commendation:
– competence, amiability, organizational skill in handling “Catholic Action” and “lay apostolate.”
This is quintessential Modernist praxis:
– do not openly deny dogma;
– simply cease to confess it;
– replace it with a new axis: man-centered activism, lay bureaucracies, and sentimental unity.
Instrumentalizing Catholic Action: From Militant Apostolate to Controlled Laicist Machine
Particularly revealing is the reference to Traglia as:
Praeses Episcopalis Consilii Actioni Catholicae et laicorum apostolatui in Italia temperandis
President of the Episcopal Council for “regulating/tempering” Catholic Action and lay apostolate.
Key points:
1. Catholic Action, in its authentic conception under pre-1958 Popes, is a participation of the laity in the hierarchical apostolate under strict dependence on the clergy, aimed at restoring all things in Christ (*instaurare omnia in Christo*), not democratizing governance nor horizontal “dialogue.”
2. The wording “temperandis” signals:
– not a call to intensify lay militancy against secularism and heresy,
– but to “moderate,” coordinate, and absorb it into institutional, centralized structures convenient for the coming conciliar re-engineering:
– shifting from confessional militancy to “social” and “ecumenical” projects,
– preparing the ground for religious liberty, false ecumenism, and the cult of human dignity that Vatican II and its successors would promote.
3. John XXIII extols Traglia’s role in such management as a principal merit. This shows that, already in 1961, the hierarchy occupying Rome is consciously reshaping the lay apostolate into an organ of the neo-church of the New Advent:
– no longer an arm of the Church Militant,
– but a filtered, obedient reservoir of laity useful for the conciliar sect’s public image.
This is in direct conflict with the pre-conciliar condemnation of:
– liberal Catholicism,
– “clerico-liberal” societies,
– secret societies and their influence on politics and education,
as seen in the Syllabus and related documents.
Where Pius IX and Leo XIII expose and fight the masonic and liberal assault, John XXIII’s letter passes over this struggle in total silence, while praising a man for exactly those structural roles that would neutralize militant Catholic lay forces.
The Ecclesiology of Compliments: Denial of the Church Militant
The entire tone of the document is incompatible with the traditional ecclesiology of the Church Militant.
Consider what is missing:
– No mention of:
– sin,
– penance,
– judgment,
– hell,
– defense of orthodoxy,
– wolves among the flock,
– necessity of supernatural faith and state of grace.
– No insistence on:
– the bishop’s obligation to teach in season and out of season,
– condemn anti-Christian doctrines,
– uphold anathemas defined by Trent, Vatican I, and reiterated by Popes down to Pius XII.
Instead, we encounter:
– a humanistic, horizontal felicitation,
– a trivialized “Apostolic Benediction” poured over a man lauded exclusively for his administrative and diplomatic qualities.
This is not mere style. It reveals a denial in practice of the Church as:
– *societas perfecta* (perfect society) with divine constitution and rights over states (Syllabus, Quanta Cura),
– *Ecclesia Militans* engaged in real combat against real, named enemies (heresies, secret societies, apostasy).
John XXIII’s rhetoric presents the “Church” as:
– an urbane institution of courteous gentlemen,
– a soft spiritual administration for religious feelings,
– integrated into the liberal-democratic order it once condemned.
By praising the Vicar of Rome not as a defender of the rights of God over the city and state, but as a pleasant, efficient coordinator of lay agendas, he implicitly:
– subordinates the supernatural mission to natural order,
– obscures Christ’s royal rights over public life, contrary to *Quas primas*.
Continuity with Conciliar Apostasy: Symptom of the System
This letter is a micro-specimen of a macro-disease: the conciliar revolution inaugurated under John XXIII and consummated under his successors, culminating in the current usurper Leo XIV and his paramasonic Church of the New Advent.
Symptomatically:
1. The very person of John XXIII:
– initiator of Vatican II,
– patron of aggiornamento,
– model for the “hermeneutic of continuity” lie.
His letters reveal, long before conciliar texts, the operative mentality:
– abolish explicit condemnations;
– exalt men, processes, and “dialogue.”
2. The praise of lay apostolate governance:
– anticipates the democratic synodal slogans,
– where laity are instrumentalized as legitimizing chorus for pre-planned doctrinal erosion,
– while real authority (valid, sacramental, hierarchical) is evacuated.
3. The language’s saccharine emptiness:
– prefigures the vacuous jargon of the neo-church:
– “accompaniment,” “listening,” “people of God,”
– all systematically detached from dogma, anathema, kingship of Christ, and the rights of the true Church.
What appears as an innocuous congratulatory note is, in reality, a distilled confession of the new religion:
– man-centered,
– careerist,
– naturalistic,
– allergic to condemnation,
– silent about Modernism and Freemasonry,
– enthusiastic about laicist structures and bureaucratic control of what once was Catholic militancy.
Theological Judgment: Why This Text Cannot Proceed from the True Papacy
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic doctrine prior to 1958, several conclusions follow.
1. A true Roman Pontiff is:
– guardian of the deposit of faith,
– sworn enemy of heresy and indifferentism,
– defender of the exclusive rights of the Church and of Christ the King over states.
2. Papal teaching and acts must:
– at least implicitly harmonize with this mission,
– never systematically undermine the combative, supernatural character of the Church.
3. This letter:
– contains no explicit heresy in a formal, dogmatic sentence;
– but its entire spirit is one of:
– suppression of the militant dimension,
– glorification of merely human ecclesiastical success,
– integration into a naturalistic social order.
In isolation, one might dismiss it as a negligible courtesy. But:
– in its historical context (immediately before Vatican II),
– in coherence with John XXIII’s program of aggiornamento,
– and in light of the unbroken pre-1958 condemnation of the very tendencies he fosters,
this letter functions as:
– a manifestation of *defectus officii* (failure of office),
– an index of an ecclesiastical authority already inwardly surrendered to the world.
The integral Catholic faith, as articulated by Pius IX in the Syllabus, by Pius X in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*, by Pius XI in *Quas primas*, tolerates no such soft collaboration with liberalism and naturalism.
A “pontiff” who consistently:
– refuses to reaffirm the condemned truths,
– promotes structures and language favorable to the errors previously anathematized,
– and lends moral prestige to the apparatus that will enthrone the conciliar revolution,
cannot be received as the faithful custodian of Peter’s mandate.
Silence about Enemies: A Strategic Acquiescence
The Syllabus of Errors and related texts, some of which are evoked in the appended material, clearly identify:
– pantheism, rationalism, indifferentism,
– socialism, communism, secret societies,
– state domination over the Church,
– religious liberty and separation of Church and State
as grave errors.
Given:
– Italy’s and Rome’s deep penetration by Freemasonic and anti-clerical forces,
– the political and cultural war against Catholic order in the mid-20th century,
a genuine Catholic head of the Church, congratulating the Vicar of Rome on 25 years of episcopacy, should:
– exhort him to resist these enemies,
– warn him against collaboration,
– strengthen him for doctrinal and disciplinary combat.
John XXIII does none of this. Instead, he:
– speaks of Traglia’s “sweetness,” “pleasant eloquence,” and success in moderating lay forces.
– requests God’s help merely so that he may continue to promote “ancient Christian piety” in Rome—reduced to a cultural-devotional relic, harmless to the secular regime.
This pastoral of silence is practical complicity.
By refusing to name the enemies so vigorously exposed by Pius IX and his successors, John XXIII effectively disarms episcopal consciences.
From Benediction to Betrayal: Why Such Texts Demand Rejection
The so-called Apostolic Blessing at the close is not a neutral ornament. Blessing presupposes:
– communion in the true faith,
– mutual adherence to the same supernatural end.
When a figure like John XXIII:
– architect of the council that enthroned religious liberty and false ecumenism,
– promulgator of a program that contradicts the Syllabus and the anti-Modernist Magisterium,
confers a “blessing” on a system of offices and policies that will serve the conciliar sect, this act stands not in continuity with prior papal blessings, but in radical rupture.
The integral Catholic conscience, bound by pre-1958 doctrine, must therefore:
– Recognize in such letters:
– not innocent piety,
– but the literature of a new establishment,
– crystallizing a church of man, state-friendly, Masonic-compatible, ready to trample the social kingship of Christ and the anathemas of the true Church.
– Reject:
– the authority claims of those who promote and embody this program;
– the legitimacy of the structures which they praise and from which they rule.
– Hold fast:
– to the teachings of the perennial Magisterium:
– that the Church is a perfect society with divine rights over states (Pius IX),
– that Modernism is the synthesis of all heresies and must be utterly extirpated (Pius X),
– that peace and order are possible only in the submission of individuals and nations to Christ the King (Pius XI, Quas primas),
– and to the supernatural, sacrificial, militant character of the true Church, intolerant of error as of poison.
This brief text, read with opened eyes, is an x-ray: it shows an official apparatus already emptied of the zeal of the Church Militant, content with careers, councils, and compliments—a fertile soil in which the abomination of desolation of post-conciliarism could take root and dominate. It deserves not admiration, but exposure and repudiation in the light of the unchanging Catholic faith.
Source:
Quintam et vicesimam – Ad Aloisium tit. S. Andreae Apostoli de Valle S. R. E. Card. Traglia, in Urbe Provicarium et Episcopalis Consilii Actioni Catholicae ac laicorum apostolatui in Italia temperandi… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025