Dated 25 August 1959, this Latin letter of John XXIII to Alfredo Card. Ottaviani appoints him as papal legate for the centenary celebrations of the establishment of the hierarchy in Canada, extols the divine benefits granted through the erection of the Canadian hierarchy, praises Laval and the missionary ancestors, urges the Canadian bishops and faithful to preserve pure doctrine, defend against errors, and proclaim Christ even amid materialism, and grants a plenary indulgence and apostolic blessing to those participating in the solemnities. Behind this apparently edifying façade lies the quiet programmatic preparation of the conciliar revolution, the instrumentalization of a once-Catholic hierarchy for an already planned neo-church, and the pious camouflage of an emerging apostasy.
Si summo: The Pious Curtain over the Canadian Front of the Conciliar Revolution
Personal Legation as Inversion of Authority: Ottaviani Harnessed to the Conciliar Project
From the first lines, John XXIII stages the classic rhetoric of Catholic piety while silently bending it to another end. He sends Ottaviani as his personal legate to preside over the centenary commemorations:
“ut Nomine Nostro Nostraque auctoritate sacris illic ritibus praesidens, gratulationum Nostrarum fias interpres…”
The structure appears Catholic: the Roman Pontiff designates a legate, honors the hierarchy, exhorts to fidelity. Yet, in 1959, with the decision to convoke the so-called Second Vatican Council already maturing in his mind and publicly announced in January of that year, this appointment must be read as part of a wider strategy:
– Ottaviani, Prefect (then Pro-Secretary) of the Holy Office, symbol of doctrinal vigilance, is bound publicly to the person and agenda of John XXIII.
– The letter clothes itself in integral vocabulary while carefully avoiding any concrete act of doctrinal condemnation against the very errors which John XXIII will soon invite into “dialogue” at the Council.
Factual reality, verifiable from pre-1958 magisterial documents, reveals a fracture:
– Pius IX in the Syllabus (esp. n. 55, 77-80) condemns the separation of Church and State, liberalism, and reconciliation with “modern civilization”.
– Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi brands precisely that “updating,” that elevation of historical method over doctrine, as Modernismus, haereticorum collectus sordes (“Modernism, the sewer of all heresies”).
Against this background, the seemingly orthodox exhortations of Si summo function as political theater: Ottaviani’s prestige and the memory of Laval and the heroic missionaries are used to sacralize the continuity of a hierarchy which, at its summit, is being redirected toward a conciliar transformation utterly incompatible with the pre-1958 magisterium. Here we witness the method of the conciliar sect: maintain words, invert their referent.
The tragedy: Ottaviani, instead of standing in frontal opposition, accepts the mission, and later allows his authority to be used to give a doctrinal-looking frame to the revolution that will culminate in the destruction of the Roman Rite and the disarming of the Holy Office. This letter is one of the early cords of that net.
Selective Memory: Glorifying the Canadian Hierarchy While Silencing Liberal Infection
John XXIII praises the foundation and development of the Canadian hierarchy, especially Laval:
“praestitit Franciscus de Montmorency-Laval… pastorali munere actuose et fructuose perfunctus, nominis sui famam inclitam posteris reliquit…”
He invokes the founders’ prudence, courage, providential foresight. All of that, historically, is substantially true. Pre-revolutionary Canada saw:
– Confessional order,
– Public recognition of the Catholic religion,
– Missionary zeal subordinated to integral doctrine,
– Close union with Rome in the sense defined by Trent and Vatican I.
But precisely here the silence of Si summo becomes a formal accusation:
– No mention of the grave infiltration of liberalism and laicism in Canadian public life.
– No word about the Syllabus of Errors as a still-binding norm against Canadian secularization.
– No denunciation of the already advancing religious liberty ideology condemned by Pius IX and Pius XI.
– No call for restoration of the public rights of Christ the King in a country rapidly normalizing pluralism.
Instead, the text confines itself to generalities:
“quotquot sunt in Canada Ecclesiae filii… ut catholicam fidem… sanctius usque colant…”
Without:
– specifying that the Catholic faith is the only true religion,
– recalling that States sin gravely if they do not publicly recognize the true Church (Quas primas, Syllabus 77),
– condemning Protestantism and other sects as perennially excluded from salvific equality (Syllabus 18).
This is not a benign omission; it is a methodological choice. The letter retroactively canonizes a deconfessionalized Canada by treating the existing situation as a neutral background, and “faith” as a private, spiritual, inward matter. It praises the hierarchy’s past while implicitly accepting their political defeat as permanent. This softly prepares the conciliar dogma of religious liberty (Dignitatis humanae) and “healthy laicity,” directly repudiating the prior magisterium in practice while not yet daring to contradict it in words.
The integral Catholic doctrine is unequivocal:
– The Church is a perfect society with innate rights, independent of the State (Syllabus 19).
– The State must not be neutral among religions; such neutrality is condemned liberalism (Syllabus 77-80).
– Peace and order come only from the public reign of Christ the King (Quas primas: “no peace until States recognize His rights”).
Si summo mutates this into a vague spirituality devoid of political teeth, thereby betraying the very tradition it pretends to honor.
Devout Rhetoric Without Teeth: The Linguistic Strategy of Harmless Catholicism
The linguistic surface of the letter is elegant, classical, apparently orthodox. This makes its deviations more insidious.
1. Frequent use of elevated piety:
– “Si summo aeternoque Deo…”
– “largitatis infinitus est thesaurus…”
– “firmiter et apte Sacramentorum administratione, veritatis praeconio…”
These formulas echo traditional ecclesiastical Latin, creating the feeling of continuity.
2. General, non-combative language concerning errors:
– The text asks that pure doctrine be defended “ab insidiis et erroribus” but:
– no concrete errors are named,
– no condemned propositions are recalled,
– no adversaries are identified (Freemasonry, liberalism, socialism, indifferentism) as Pius IX and Leo XIII invariably did.
3. Emptied references to evangelization:
– Canadians are exhorted:
“ut omni modo annuntietur Christus”
But “Christ” is left undefined:
– No insistence on adherence to the integral Roman doctrine.
– No warning against ecumenism or pan-Christian confusion.
– No clear call to convert non-Catholics to the one fold, unus Dominus, una fides, unum baptisma (“one Lord, one faith, one baptism”).
The rhetoric functions as a sedative. The hierarchy is praised, the faithful are caressed, “Christ” is invoked—but the sharp, divisive, salvific claims of the pre-1958 magisterium are systematically avoided. This is precisely the modernist technique: maintain Catholic vocabulary while draining it of its dogmatic and anti-liberal force.
Pius X defined this method incisively in Pascendi: Modernists speak with two voices, one traditional and one subversive, adjusting tone to audience. Here we see the “traditional” register covering for a revolution that is already operational at the level of principles.
Supernatural Vocabulary, Naturalistic Subtext
At first glance, Si summo appears to place supernatural reality at the center:
– Frequent mention of divine benefits.
– Exhortation to long for heavenly goods, oppose materialism:
“quisquis in nobilissima Canada christiana professione gloriatur… supernis inhiet bonis…”
However, in a letter commemorating the hierarchical constitution and addressing bishops in a nation rapidly submitting to secular liberalism, the crucial supernatural axes are conspicuously absent or diluted:
– No mention of the Four Last Things (death, judgment, heaven, hell) as compelling motives for public conversion and legislation.
– No warning against indifferentism, condemned explicitly by Pius IX.
– No recall of the duty of rulers to obey Christ’s law as condition for legitimacy.
– No explicit call to the Most Holy Sacrifice as propitiatory offering for national sins; “sacris ritibus” is treated functionally, primarily as solemn celebration and context for indulgence.
The letter grants a plenary indulgence:
“ut… Plenariam Indulgentiam iisdem proponas, sueta Ecclesiae lege lucrandam.”
But this spiritual treasure is inserted into a horizon devoid of the uncompromising royal rights of Christ over Canada’s public order. It risks becoming a sacramental decoration of a liberal status quo, instead of a supernatural engine of its overthrow.
Integral Catholic theology, reaffirmed by Pius XI in Quas primas, binds these elements together:
– True devotion, sacramental life, and indulgences are not ornaments for a neutral civil order; they are weapons to subject individuals and nations to Christ the King.
– To separate piety from the political obligation of the State toward the true religion is itself a grave error condemned as liberalism.
Si summo embodies that separation in practice: heaven is spoken of; the battlefield of law, education, and public cult is left untouched. This is not accidental; it is the signature of the conciliar project.
Doctrinal Level: Omission of Non-Negotiable Dogmatic Coordinates
Viewed against the pre-1958 magisterium, the omissions of Si summo are theologically decisive.
1. No mention of the exclusive truth of the Catholic religion.
– Pius IX (Syllabus 15-18, 21) condemns the idea that any religion may be freely chosen, or that salvation is equally attainable in any religion, or that the Church cannot dogmatically define herself as the unique true religion.
– This letter, addressing a pluralistic Canada, abstains from restating these truths. This silence prepares the path for the conciliar affirmation of a right to religious liberty, in open contradiction to the Syllabus.
2. No reiteration of the Church’s innate rights against the State.
– Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI consistently affirm:
– The Church has sovereign rights, granted by Christ.
– Civil authority has no competence to define the rights of the Church.
– Si summo praises the hierarchy and mentions “magistratus” only to bless, never to remind them of their grave obligation to support the true religion and reject error.
3. No warning against liberal and Masonic sects.
– The Syllabus and preceding allocutions explicitly identify secret societies and liberal projects as instruments of Satan’s war against the Church.
– Canada, like other Western nations, is heavily infiltrated. Yet John XXIII, in a letter precisely commemorating the hierarchical establishment (and thus the visible structure targeted by these sects), utters not a word about this concrete threat.
Thus, the letter delivers a “Catholicism” that:
– does not contest the liberal framework,
– does not condemn the dominant ideological idols,
– does not challenge public error with the obligation of conversion.
That “Catholicism” is conceptually equivalent to the neo-church which will formally emerge at and after Vatican II: religio humanistica conciliata cum mundo (a humanistic religion reconciled with the world). The seeds are already visible here.
Symptomatic Level: A Prototype of Conciliar Pastoralism
Si summo is a paradigm of what will be called “pastoral” style at the Council:
– non-controversial,
– irenic,
– saturated with general exhortations,
– allergic to precise condemnations.
Pius X explicitly rejected this attitude. In Pascendi and in the Oath against Modernism (1910), he bound clergy to:
– uphold defined dogma in its one immutable sense,
– reject the evolution of dogma,
– resist historical relativism,
– unmask and condemn modernist errors clearly.
By contrast, John XXIII in this letter:
– speaks of errors only in the vaguest terms,
– avoids any robust doctrinal specification,
– uses the existence of a strong historical hierarchy (Laval, missionaries) as a sentimental resource, not as a standard to indict present laxity.
This is why the letter is emblematic:
– It instrumentalizes an authentically Catholic past to gestate a non-Catholic future.
– It demonstrates that the conciliar sect does not initially deny dogma outright; it empties it by silencing its practical consequences and the necessity of public militancy.
The fruits are known and verifiable:
– In the aftermath of Vatican II, the Canadian hierarchy collapses doctrinally and morally:
– Ample acceptance of contraception, liturgical profanations, public dissent.
– Effective surrender to the secular State in all decisive questions (education, morality, public law).
– Replacement of missionary zeal with ecumenical gatherings and interreligious gestures.
– The very hierarchy solemnly commemorated in 1959 becomes one of the laboratories of the abomination of desolation: pseudo-sacraments in a pseudo-rite, false ecumenism, practical naturalism.
Si summo reads, in retrospect, as a consecration not of Laval’s work, but of its future demolition under conciliar banners.
Instrumentalizing Indulgences and Blessings to Validate a Neo-Agenda
The letter’s closing provisions are significant:
“facultatis facimus, ut, sacro pontificali sollemni ritu peracto, nomine Nostro Nostraque potestate adstantibus christifidelibus benedicas, atque Plenariam Indulgentiam iisdem proponas…”
Formally, such grants are classical papal acts. Their use here, however, is characteristic of the conciliar method:
– The external line of juridical and sacramental continuity is maintained.
– The hierarchy and faithful are oriented to receive spiritual benefits precisely in a framework that progressively detaches itself from integral doctrine.
– The prestige of indulgences and papal blessing is directed toward acceptance of the authority of John XXIII, who is already set to inaugurate a council dismantling the anti-liberal magisterium.
From the perspective of unchanging doctrine:
– Indulgences and blessings are ordered to the strengthening of the faithful in resisting the world, the flesh, and the devil according to the perennial faith.
– Their use to “confirm” a project of accommodation with liberal, pluralistic society is a practical perversion.
The pious exterior is weaponized to secure adhesion to a program that leads away from the Kingship of Christ and the integral confession of the Catholic faith. This is not mere stylistic weakness; it is a calculated misuse of spiritual capital.
The Betrayal of Mission: From Conversion to Coexistence
The passage which most clearly reveals the underlying shift is the generalized exhortation to oppose materialism and desire heavenly goods. This is correct, yet it remains incomplete and thereby misleading:
– True opposition to materialism includes the public and doctrinal condemnation of all false religions, secular ideologies, and the demand for conversion to the one Church.
– It includes asserting that societies which legally protect error and suppress truth offend God and are on the path to ruin.
Si summo does not say this. Instead, it promotes a Catholicism that:
– remains within the souls,
– expresses itself in moral and devotional seriousness,
– politely abstains from unsettling the pluralistic order.
This esteems peace with liberalism higher than fidelity to the Syllabus and to Quas primas. Such pastoralism is structurally incompatible with the integral faith:
– The Church cannot renounce her claim to be the unique ark of salvation without apostasy.
– She cannot accept the parity of false religions under State laws without betraying Christ the King.
– She cannot cease to judge and condemn errors without contradicting her divine mandate.
Thus, behind the apparently orthodox text stands a precise theological bankruptcy: the practical abandonment of the confession that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation in the full, dogmatically defined sense, and that Christ must reign socially and politically, not only privately and invisibly.
Conclusion: Si summo as a Soft Launch of the Canadian Neo-Church
Taken line by line, Si summo offers little that is overtly heretical. That is precisely its effectiveness as an instrument of the conciliar sect. Its poison lies in:
– what it does not say about liberalism, laicism, false religions, Freemasonry, and the duty of the State;
– the way it uses traditional language to anesthetize vigilance;
– its function of reconciling bishops and faithful to a “papacy” already preparing the council which will contradict, in practice and often in words, the pre-1958 magisterium.
The integral Catholic conscience must therefore:
– Refuse to be deceived by the stylistic continuity.
– Measure every such document by the solemn teachings of Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII.
– Recognize in this letter an early sign of the systematic replacement of militant Catholic doctrine with conciliatory pastoralism that culminated in the Church of the New Advent: a paramasonic, ecumenical, naturalistic construct occupying the visible structures once Catholic.
Where authentic Catholic tradition spoke with sovereign clarity—condemning liberalism, demanding the social Kingship of Christ, anathematizing modernism—Si summo offers ornate exhortations carefully stripped of those cutting edges. That is not an accident of style. It is the quiet proclamation of a new program which, under the guise of thanking God for the past, inaugurates the dissolution of that very legacy.
Source:
Ad Alfredum S. R. E. Cardinalem Ottaviani, Supremae Sacrae Congregationis S. Officii Prosecretarium, qui legatus deligitur ad Sollemnia, quibus saecularis memoria Sacrae Hierarchiae in Canada Constitu… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025