This brief Latin letter of John XXIII congratulates Cardinal Iacobus Aloisius Copello on the 60th anniversary of his priestly ordination: it recalls his long ministry, especially as archbishop of Buenos Aires, praises his diligence and piety, thanks God for his gifts, invokes further merits for Copello in his role as Chancellor of the Roman Church, and imparts an apostolic blessing on him and those celebrating the jubilee. Its entire horizon, however, is that of an already subverted hierarchy mutually confirming itself in human honors while remaining silent about the integral Catholic faith, the gravity of apostasy, and the rights of Christ the King, revealing the spiritual emptiness and internal contradiction of the conciliar project it serves.
Laudation without Faith: John XXIII’s Epistolary Mask of a Deeper Revolution
From Harmless Compliment to Manifest Symptom of a New Religion
At first glance, this text appears as a courteous note: a “pope” congratulating an elderly “cardinal” for sixty years of priesthood. Precisely here lies its theological significance. In such apparently marginal texts the true nature of the conciliar upheaval emerges most clearly: where the supernatural order is mentioned only decoratively, where human careers replace the sacrum, and where the vocabulary of tradition is mobilized to conceal its systematic demolition.
Key elements of the letter, rendered in translation, suffice:
“We gladly adorn you with wishes and prayers… recalling your labors in the sacred ministry, especially as Bishop of Buenos Aires… It is fitting to give thanks to God… We greatly desire that, as Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, laboring in the Roman Curia, you may abound in new merits… enjoying an active and vigorous old age; we ask Christ Jesus for abundant help and lovingly impart the Apostolic Blessing…”
On the surface, nothing overtly heretical. Yet, under the light of *unchanging Catholic doctrine prior to 1958*, and in view of the historical facts of John XXIII’s role as initiator of the conciliar revolution, this letter becomes a micro-document of the new cult: the cult of the institution detached from the true Faith, the cult of functionaries, of diplomacy, of a pseudo-clergy praising one another while guiding souls toward the *abomination of desolation*.
The central problem: an apostate hierarchy confirms itself in purely natural terms while systematically omitting the truths necessary for salvation. In Catholic theology, such silence is not accidental; it is a sign of doctrinal corruption and a deliberate policy.
Factual Level: Whom John XXIII Praises, and What He Does Not Dare to Say
1. Elevation of a compromised hierarch
John XXIII showering Copello with honors must be read in the real historical context of the 20th century: episcopal careers intertwined with diplomatic servility, cooperation with anti-Catholic regimes, and acceptance of liberal-democratic and masonic frameworks condemned by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
Instead of confronting the modernist and political deviations that marked the higher clergy of his time, John XXIII presents Copello as an exemplary servant simply because he administered an important see and now serves in the Curia. This epistolary praise reinforces a central axiom of the conciliar sect: institutional success is treated as evidence of fidelity, regardless of objective adherence to doctrine.
Contrast this with Pope Pius IX and the Syllabus of Errors, which decisively reject the submission of the Church to liberal states, the relativization of doctrine, and any implicit collaboration with anti-Christian forces:
– Pius IX condemns the thesis that the Church cannot define that the Catholic religion is the only true one (Syllabus, 21), and the notion that the Church must reconcile herself with “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Syllabus, 80).
John XXIII, in his broader pontificate, does precisely what Pius IX anathematized: he prepares the reconciliation of the occupied Roman structures with the modern world; this letter is a small token of that regime—rewarding docile prelates of that spirit.
2. Total absence of the concrete demands of salvation
Nowhere does John XXIII:
– call Copello to deeper union with the Sacrifice of Christ,
– exhort him to defend the flock against specific heresies (Modernism, laicism, socialism, religious indifferentism),
– remind him of judgment, hell, and the weight of episcopal responsibility,
– mention the unique necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation,
– insist on the public social reign of Christ the King.
He speaks of “labors” and “merits” in vague terms, wrapped in soft sentiment. This is not accidental. The letter is emblematic of a shift from the precise supernatural grammar of the pre-1958 papacy to a benign, horizontal language which carefully avoids conflicts with the new ideology of “dialogue” and liberal accommodation.
Pius XI in *Quas primas* teaches with clarity that real peace and order are only possible under the Regnum Christi, and condemns the laicist apostasy of states and societies. In this light, the silence of John XXIII toward the militant duties of a bishop in a world dominated by masonic and modernist forces is itself a betrayal. Where Pius XI summons nations to submission to Christ, John XXIII contents himself with congratulating an administrator of a collapsing order.
Linguistic Level: Sentimental Humanism Replacing Apostolic Gravity
The language of the letter is revealing:
– “felicissimi diei” (most happy day)
– “caritatis… affectui” (affection of charity)
– “dulce tibi est recolere” (it is sweet for you to recall)
– “actuosa et vegeta senectute” (active and vigorous old age)
– expansive well-wishing, generic gratitude, and compliments.
None of these expressions are wrong in themselves. But in isolation, and especially in the mouth of the man who soon would unleash the conciliar demolition, they are symptomatic.
1. Sentimentalism instead of gravity
Authentic Catholic papal style—see St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII—while capable of paternal warmth, is marked by doctrinal precision and supernatural seriousness. Even in letters of congratulation, the Popes remind recipients of:
– duty to guard the deposit of faith,
– the danger of errors attacking the Church,
– the need for sacrificial conformity to the Cross,
– the primacy of the Most Holy Sacrifice and the salvation of souls.
This letter, in contrast, is soaked in a vague benevolence, devoid of doctrinal content. It reads as if “priesthood” were a career culminating in Curial prestige and “vigorous old age,” rather than a participation in the Victimhood of Christ.
2. Institutional flattery as spiritual currency
John XXIII emphasizes Copello’s role as:
“Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cancellarius” and one “impending great work in the Roman Curia”.
He links “new merits” to this bureaucratic function. The message: to serve in the Curia of the neo-church is itself a meritorious end. This contradicts the traditional view: Curial service is to be judged by its fidelity to dogma and its defense of the flock. Detached from that criterion, it is a hollow, even deadly dignity.
The tone betrays what can be called *naturalistic sacralization of office*: offices and anniversaries are celebrated without confronting whether these powers are used to obey or to betray Christ. This is a sign of a self-referential, clericalist system, no longer the supernatural *Societas perfecta* defending divine truth, but a *paramasonic structure* venerating itself.
Theological Level: Silence as Confession of Apostasy
Measured against unchanging doctrine, this letter manifests a triple theological bankruptcy: in its concept of priesthood, grace, and the Church.
1. Priesthood Reduced to Longevity and Reputation
Catholic doctrine—Trent, the Roman Catechism, the constant teaching—presents the priest as:
– one configured to Christ the High Priest,
– ordained primarily to offer the *Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary*,
– to preach dogma, condemn error, absolve sins,
– to stand as watchman against heresy and profanation.
Here, John XXIII does not mention:
– the Sacrifice,
– the altar,
– the cure of souls,
– the defense of doctrine,
– the need to oppose the world, flesh, and devil.
Instead, he praises Copello’s “labors” in an empty abstraction and prays for a comfortable continuation of his activity.
This is not merely an omission; in the conciliar context it is a theological signal: priesthood is reinterpreted as humanitarian, administrative service, harmonious with the world, stripped of its militant and sacrificial essence.
This corresponds precisely to the modernist program condemned in *Lamentabili sane* and *Pascendi*: reducing supernatural realities to functions, evolution, and community service. Pius X condemned the notion that dogma and ecclesiastical structures are mutable expressions of religious experience. John XXIII’s praxis and rhetoric harmonize with this condemned modernist immanentism, even when cloaked in Latin.
2. Grace Without Conversion: The Abuse of Pious Phrases
The letter contains invocations of divine assistance:
“Deo… gratias persolvere”, “praesentissima a Christo Iesu auxilia”, “Apostolicam Benedictionem”.
But these are entirely separated from:
– any call to repentance,
– any denunciation of error,
– any explicit subordinating of all human action to the immutable Catholic dogma.
In traditional theology, blessings presuppose at least non-opposition to the faith and are ordered to perseverance in truth. Here, the “apostolic blessing” is extended over a system already engaged in the preparation of the conciliar subversion, including the future imposition of a bastard liturgy and false ecumenism.
When a structure which promotes religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenical indifferentism, and the weakening of dogma is the same that dispenses such “blessings,” these acts are objectively void of Catholic authority. They are propaganda gestures of the neo-church, not acts of the true Apostolic See.
3. The Church Confused with a Neo-Ecclesial Establishment
The letter assumes:
– that the one writing is the Roman Pontiff,
– that the Curia he heads is the organ of the Catholic Church,
– that the honors conferred are ecclesially meaningful.
However, as established by unimpeachable Catholic theology (Bellarmine, John of St. Thomas, Wernz-Vidal) and reflected in Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code, a manifest heretic cannot hold ecclesiastical office; public defection from the faith vacates office *ipso facto*. Once a claimant openly promotes condemned doctrines—such as religious liberty opposed to the Syllabus, or a new ecclesiology contrary to the dogmatic constitution of the Church—his acts are devoid of papal authority.
John XXIII, as initiator of the conciliar revolution, occupies precisely this situation: his broader magisterial and practical program contradicts the pre-1958 Magisterium. Thus, this letter is not the voice of the Bride of Christ but of an intruding structure that has usurped her institutional shell.
Therefore:
– These congratulatory words are not papal approbation but evidence of continuity of personnel between pre-conciliar weakness and conciliar apostasy.
– The theological weight of the letter is negative: it records how the *Church of the New Advent* sacralizes its own illegitimate hierarchy.
Symptomatic Level: A Microcosm of the Conciliar Sect’s Auto-Referential Cult
This short letter, rightly dissected, manifests several essential marks of the post-1958 *paramasonic structure*:
1. Human Careerism Cloaked in Sacral Language
To celebrate sixty years of “priesthood” abstracted from fidelity to doctrine, while the same circles are preparing the aggiornamento that will enthrone religious liberty and ecumenism, is to replace the Catholic criterion (*fides integra, cultus verus, obedientia doctrinalis*) with a naturalistic one: longevity, diplomacy, Curial office.
This contradicts the warnings of Pius X against Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies” and against those who, under the pretext of “pastoral” concerns, dissolve the objective content of the Faith. It also mocks the insistence of Pius XI in *Quas primas* that Christ must reign socially and politically; for the men congratulated here serve precisely the softening and later renunciation of those rights.
2. Clerical Self-Glorification and the Eclipse of the Sacrifice
Significantly absent:
– the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as propitiatory,
– the objective reality of sin and divine wrath,
– the primacy of the Cross.
The priesthood is not defined in relation to the altar, but to “labors” in office. This anticipates the post-1960s inversion wherein the so-called “Mass” is reduced to a community meal and the “priest” to a president of the assembly.
Where the sacrificial and expiatory dimension disappears from rhetoric, the doctrinal betrayal is already germinating. This letter is part of that gradual mutation of language: from *sacerdos altaris* to religious functionary.
3. Silence Regarding Modernism and Freemasonry
While Pius IX and Leo XIII explicitly unmask masonic conspiracies against the Church, and Pius X explicitly condemns Modernism by name, John XXIII’s congratulatory letter ignores the doctrinal battlefield entirely, as if the mid-20th century hierarchy lived in a vacuum untouched by error.
Given that the historical period is one of intense modernist infiltration, this silence is itself damning. A true pope, in the tradition of his predecessors, would seize every occasion—especially the jubilee of a high prelate—to exhort him to stand firm against:
– liberalism,
– socialism,
– indifferentism,
– false ecumenism,
– the cult of man,
– liturgical and doctrinal innovations.
Instead, we see a perfect example of *tacit complicity*: a mutual pact of silence about the real enemy—apostasy within—and instead a smooth ritual of institutional optimism.
4. The Pseudo-Apostolic Blessing as Seal of the Neo-Church
John XXIII extends his “apostolic blessing” to Copello and to all those forming the “festive crown” at the celebration. In Catholic theology, a blessing is ordered to the strengthening of the faithful in the true faith. But when issued by one who inaugurates a council that will promote error and confusion, such a blessing functions as a counterfeit seal: a way to bind souls emotionally to a system that is about to betray their baptism.
*Benedicere* without *docere veritatem* is a lie. The more smoothly such blessings are dispensed, the more they serve to stupefy consciences and habituate them to the authority of the usurping structure.
The Deep Omission: Christ the King Removed from the Horizon
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the most serious indictment of this letter is its practical denial of the social Kingship of Christ.
– There is no call to Copello to defend the rights of Christ the King in Argentina or in Rome.
– No reminder that rulers and nations must submit their laws publicly to Christ’s sovereignty, as Pius XI solemnly teaches.
– No word that the priestly and episcopal office exists to subject all things—laws, customs, education, politics—to the sweet yoke of the Redeemer.
Instead, the letter suggests a comfortable coexistence with the world: wishing “active and vigorous old age” within the Curia, not martyr-like fidelity in an age of apostasy.
This omission is programmatic. The coming conciliar declaration on religious liberty will effectively neutralize the doctrine of *Quas primas*. The silence in this letter prefigures that betrayal: Christ the King is mentioned only indirectly, never as Legislator and Judge to whom Copello and all nations must render strict account.
Conclusion: A Polished Fragment of a Larger Usurpation
This letter is not an isolated courtesy; it is an organic cell of the new organism—the neo-church—which from 1958 onward occupies the visible structures once Catholic.
– It employs traditional forms (Latin, blessings, references to God) while evacuating them of concrete doctrinal content.
– It glorifies a hierarchy that will lead millions into the labyrinth of Modernism, false ecumenism, and idolatrous liturgies.
– It remains mute on heresy, masonic influence, and the necessity of defending the flock—precisely where true pastors of the pre-1958 era spoke with fire.
Thus, this text, though short, is a manifestation of the systemic apostasy: the substitution of a supernatural, sacrificial, dogmatically grounded priesthood with a humanistic, bureaucratic, self-congratulatory caste in the service of the conciliar revolution.
In the light of the perennial Magisterium—Pius IX’s Syllabus, Pius X’s *Lamentabili sane* and *Pascendi*, Pius XI’s *Quas primas*, the 1917 Code—this letter’s omissions, tone, and presuppositions testify against the legitimacy of the one who signed it and against the ecclesial body he represented. It belongs not to the living voice of the spotless Bride of Christ, but to that foreign structure which has invaded her visible precincts and must be judged by the very unchanging doctrine it seeks to bury under smiles and formal courtesies.
Source:
Sexagesimam anniversariam – Epistula ad Iacobum Aloisium Cardinalem Copello, Sanctae Romanae Ecelesiae Cancellarium, sexagesimum ab inito sacerdotio annum implentem, d. 25 m. Septembris a. 1962, Ioann… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025