John XXIII’s Sentimental Diplomacy and the Betrayal of the Suffering Church
The document is a Latin letter in which John XXIII addresses Josef Beran, Archbishop of Prague, on the fiftieth anniversary of his priestly ordination. It recalls Beran’s academic and pastoral merits, laments his enforced isolation by the communist regime, enumerates persecutions in Czechoslovakia (suppression of religious orders, censorship, atheistic propaganda, imprisonment and exile of clergy), invokes Gospel beatitudes for the persecuted, calls upon local saints as intercessors, and imparts an “Apostolic Blessing” to Beran, the clergy, faithful of Prague, and all Czechoslovakia. The entire piece cloaks itself in pious consolation while carefully avoiding any concrete condemnation, canonical action, or assertion of the objective rights of Christ the King and His Church against an openly anti-Christian, Masonic-communist tyranny—thus perfectly illustrating the soft modernist strategy of rhetorical empathy without dogmatic combat, a counterfeit “pastoral” pose that anesthetizes resistance instead of defending the persecuted flock.
Reduction of Martyrdom to Sentimental Encouragement without Juridical Consequence
John XXIII frames Beran’s long persecution almost exclusively in emotional and devotional categories:
“Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven… Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is very great in heaven.”
He repeats this evangelical beatitude as a consolation formula, yet nowhere does he:
– Affirm the intrinsic injustice and nullity of communist anti-Church decrees in precise juridical terms.
– Invoke the perennial doctrine that civil laws contrary to divine and ecclesiastical right are not laws but perversions (*lex iniusta non est lex*).
– Demand from the regime the liberation of bishops and restoration of ecclesial rights as a matter of divine obligation.
– Issue any canonical censure, interdict, or public declaration marking communism’s anti-Christian persecution as a revolt against Christ the King.
Instead of acting as supreme guardian of the Church’s liberty, he confines himself to a soft lamentation that they “cannot” be present with Beran and that he is grieved by the situation. This is a paradigmatic manifestation of the post-1958 posture: moral admiration for confessors of the faith without the corresponding exercise of authority against the persecutors.
Pre-1958 papal teaching speaks in a radically different register:
– Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors rejects the liberal thesis that the Church must submit to the civil power in defining her rights or be separated from the State (Syllabus, errors 19, 55). Here, John XXIII presents the persecution largely as an unfortunate political fact, not as the juridical crime of a State violating the rights of the Mystical Body and of Christ Himself.
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that true peace is impossible unless rulers publicly recognize and submit to the social reign of Christ the King; he denounces laicism as a plague. John XXIII, while naming outrages, refuses to rise to that doctrinal level: no demand that Czechoslovakia must recognize the kingship of Christ, only a private pious consolation.
– Pius X in *Lamentabili sane* and *Pascendi* mandates doctrinal clarity and condemnation of systems hostile to faith; here we see only oblique description, never full doctrinal denunciation of atheistic communism as an intrinsic enemy of God and the Church.
The result: Beran’s sufferings are aestheticized. The man is praised; his chains are described; their authors are not anathematized. The persecution is personalized and spiritualized, detached from the dogmatic question of who has authority and what the State owes to Christ. This is not Catholic militancy; it is a proto-conciliar humanitarianism.
Soft Language as a Symptom of Doctrinal Disarming
The linguistic texture of the letter is revealing. John XXIII adopts a tone suffused with:
– Sentimental vocabulary: “sorrow,” “comfort,” “gratitude,” “benevolent spirit,” “paternal voice,” “festive encounter,” “laetitia sancta.”
– Vague lamentation: he notes that an “iniqua rerum condicio perseverat” (“unjust condition persists”) but abstains from explicitly condemning the communist system as objectively illegitimate and anti-Christian.
When he lists concrete wrongs:
“Religious congregations and Catholic associations banned; free schools abolished; Catholic writings forbidden to be printed; obstacles to Christian instruction; propagation of atheism, especially among youth; many bishops impeded, imprisoned, or exiled; priests jailed, deported, forced into labor.”
these grave facts are presented descriptively, without the logical Catholic consequence: that such a regime is morally at war with God, is usurping rights that belong *iure divino* to the Church, and must be named and fought as such. Pius IX, confronted with similar phenomena, explicitly identified the Masonic sects and liberal systems as instruments of the “synagogue of Satan,” condemned their principles, and declared anti-ecclesiastical laws null and void, affirming that no human power could strip bishops of their office or subject the Church to civil tyranny. Here, John XXIII’s rhetoric is a diluted echo without teeth.
This linguistic softness is itself theological. The refusal to speak with judicial clarity reveals a new paradigm in which:
– The rights of God are tacitly subordinated to pragmatic coexistence.
– The detailed naming of enemies (Masonry, communism as such, liberalism) is avoided in favour of ambiguous “suffering” and “difficult circumstances.”
– Persecution is treated as an occasion for spiritual poetry rather than as a declaration of war by the world against the Mystical Body that demands reciprocal condemnation.
Such rhetoric prepares the conciliar and post-conciliar shift: from condemning error to “dialogue,” from doctrine as law to doctrine as inspiration, from militant supernatural realism to humanistic compassion devoid of juridical follow-through.
Ecclesiology without the Kingship of Christ in Public Life
Measured against integral pre-1958 doctrine, the deepest problem is what this letter does not say.
1. There is no explicit reaffirmation that:
– Christ is King of societies, legislatures, and governments, and that Czechoslovakia sins gravely by legally dethroning Him.
– The State has not merely permitted injustices but has committed usurpation of divine and ecclesiastical rights that must be resisted.
2. There is no reminder that:
– Laws suppressing religious orders, Catholic schools, and preaching of the faith are morally null.
– Cooperation with such anti-Christian legislation is gravely sinful.
– Catholic rulers and officials (if any remain) must oppose these structures under pain of betraying their baptism.
Instead, John XXIII:
– Presents himself as constrained, almost impotent (“non licet…”), as if the Vicar of Christ were a spectator.
– Limits himself to “prayer” and “consolation,” as though the papal munus regendi—the duty to govern and, when needed, to bind and to loose with juridical sanctions—were suspended.
Contrast:
– Pius XI’s *Quas Primas* explicitly teaches that states must frame law, education, and public life according to the commandments of God and the rights of the Church; to do otherwise is apostasy. There we find the strong thesis: peace and order depend on public recognition of Christ’s reign.
– Pius IX in texts appended to the Syllabus exposes and condemns Masonic and anti-Catholic regimes, affirms the invalidity of laws violating the constitution of the Church, and asserts the independence and supremacy of the Church’s jurisdiction in its own sphere.
Here, by omission, John XXIII advances a practical “religious liberty” narrative that will be dogmatized by the conciliar sect: persecution is grieved, but the Catholic doctrine of the confessional State and Christ’s social kingship is not invoked. This is not accidental; it is symptomatic of the coming revolution.
From Papal Authority to Therapeutic Fatherhood: The False Pastoral Paradigm
The letter’s structure casts John XXIII as a gentle, reflective father who:
– Remembers Beran’s scholarly and pastoral career in detail.
– Praises his zeal and courage in wartime.
– Presents his current suffering as a seed in the ground that will bear fruit: a poetic use of the grain-of-wheat image.
– Invokes local saints as heavenly supporters.
But he never acts as:
– Supreme Legislator defending the constitution of the Church.
– Judge condemning the aggressors.
– Guardian applying sanctions or rallying the faithful to organized resistance.
The pastoral is severed from the juridical and doctrinal. This is precisely what St. Pius X denounced in the modernist mentality: religion reduced to inner experience, consolation, and historical adaptation, while dogma and jurisdiction are silently neutralized. The letter speaks as if:
– The main task is to “comfort” the persecuted, not to confront their persecutors in the Name and rights of Christ.
– The persecution is a sorrowful providential circumstance rather than the visible assault of the “synagogue of Satan” (as Pius IX called the Masonic networks) that must be unmasked.
Thus, an emasculated image of the papacy is projected—one which the conciliar sect will exploit: a “pope” as global chaplain of suffering, issuing blessings and emotive messages, yet refusing to command, to bind, to condemn; in a word, renouncing the sword of Peter while retaining the costume.
Controlled Indignation: Naming Crimes While Accepting the System
At the factual level, John XXIII accurately notes several elements:
– Suppression of Catholic institutions.
– Persecution and displacement of bishops and clergy.
– Atheistic propaganda, especially targeting youth.
Yet the presentation is carefully bounded. Several crucial omissions betray the underlying compromise:
– No identification of communism as a systematic, ideologically anti-Christian project rooted in materialism and the program of the secret societies repeatedly condemned by true popes.
– No explicit invocation of earlier papal condemnations of socialism, communism, and liberalism as incompatible with the faith.
– No call for the faithful to reject any collaboration with state-controlled “patriotic” religious structures. In a context where regimes design counterfeit ecclesial bodies, such silence is devastating.
Here we see the pattern:
– The suffering of loyal bishops like Beran is narrated; at the same time, no clear directive is given that would delegitimize collaborationist clergy who compromise with the regime.
– The faithful are left with a single message: be patient, be comforted, endure; no command to distinguish the true apostolic line from regime-manufactured pseudo-hierarchy.
This controlled indignation serves the emerging conciliar approach: coexistence with communist states, gradual transition to Ostpolitik, replacement of condemnations with negotiations. The seeds are present already here: the Pope “suffers,” “prays,” “blesses,” but refuses to speak with the thundering clarity of Pius IX or Pius X.
Suppression of the Church’s Sovereign Rights as Divine Constitution
One striking element is the total absence of a key doctrinal note: that Christ Himself, in founding the Church, has established her rights and immunities which are not concessions of the State and cannot be revoked.
Pre-1958 doctrine (expressed for instance in the Syllabus and numerous allocutions):
– Affirms the Church as a perfect society, endowed with its own inalienable rights.
– Condemns the thesis that ecclesiastical liberty and property are at the disposal of the civil power.
– Declares null any attempt by lay authorities to depose bishops, restrain their office, or control sacramental life.
John XXIII notes Bishops are removed, imprisoned, exiled; yet he:
– Does not solemnly declare these acts null and without effect.
– Does not warn the faithful that any state-sponsored replacement of bishops or interference in appointments is illegitimate and sacrilegious.
– Does not assert openly: no human authority can depose what the Holy Ghost has placed; those who persecute the episcopate set themselves against God.
The effect is a tacit acceptance that the communist State “holds” certain instruments of control, while the “pope” contents himself with spiritual sympathy. This is precisely how the conciliar sect would later acquiesce to regimes choosing or vetting “bishops” within its structures. The denial is not shouted; it is implemented through silence.
Harmless Invocation of Saints without Continuity of Their Combative Faith
John XXIII concludes by calling upon the great saints of Bohemia—Ludmilla, Wenceslaus, Adalbert, Procopius, John Nepomucene—to “gladden” and “surround” Beran. But he does not invoke them as militant witnesses against tyranny:
– St. Wenceslaus and St. Adalbert embody a union of temporal power and Catholic faith; their example contradicts the neutral language regarding the modern atheist State.
– St. John Nepomucene died defending the seal of confession against royal intrusion: precisely the kind of intransigence against state encroachment that the letter fails to endorse.
The saints are reduced to ornaments of consolation, detached from the political and juridical implications of their lives. This hagiographical declawing is typical of the neo-church: it retains names and statues while betraying the principles they died for.
Symptom and Seed of the Conciliar Revolution
Taken in isolation, some might see this letter as merely a courteous, pious note to a persecuted prelate. Read in the light of integral Catholic doctrine and the later trajectory of the conciliar sect, it is a revealing piece:
– It marks a shift from the doctrinally armed papacy of Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII—who condemned ideologies, declared errors, and invoked divine law against anti-Catholic regimes—to a therapy-oriented papacy of feeling and diplomacy.
– It anticipates Ostpolitik: no open condemnation, careful choice of words not to “inflame” the persecutors, acceptance in practice of the communist grip.
– It exemplifies the modernist tactic: maintain Catholic vocabulary (saints, beatitudes, kingdom of heaven) while removing the sharp edges—no call for the social reign of Christ, no insistence on the duty of states to honor Him, no juridical defense of ecclesiastical sovereignty.
In theological terms, this letter is the antithesis of *Quas Primas* in practice. Pius XI, recalling that peace is possible only where Christ reigns as King over public and private life, called secularism a plague and demanded public acts of submission. John XXIII, faced with open militant atheism in power, limits himself to private words of comfort. That is not Catholic pastoral prudence; it is the inauguration of the conciliar accommodation.
Conclusion: Consolation without Combat as a Betrayal of the Flock
When a shepherd is chained, the true Vicar of Christ must not only comfort him but unsheathe the sword of Peter against the wolves. The integral Catholic faith, as expressed infallibly and consistently before 1958, demands:
– Clear condemnation of regimes that usurp divine and ecclesiastical rights.
– Affirmation of the nullity of anti-Church laws.
– Exhortation of bishops, priests, and faithful to reject collaboration with structures of persecution.
– Public proclamation that the only true order—social, political, and personal—flows from the reign of Christ the King and obedience to His Church.
This letter does none of this. It offers holy words without holy war, tears without thunder, benediction without binding. In doing so, it prefigures the systemic apostasy of the conciliar sect: a paramasonic construction that sentimentalizes suffering while refusing to defend the rights of God, paving the way for coexistence with every anti-Christian power so long as it leaves room for harmless “religion” without the Cross of Christ the King planted over nations and laws.
Source:
Tuus quinquagesimus – Ad Iosephum Beran, Archiepiscopum Pragensem, quinqua- gesimo eius Sacerdotii vertente natali (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025