John XXIII’s Latin letter “Undeviginti saecula” is a brief appointment of Aloisius Josephus (Aloisius Joseph Muench) as papal legate to preside over celebrations in Malta commemorating nineteen centuries since the shipwreck of St Paul. The text extols Malta’s natural gifts, praises its traditional fidelity to the Catholic faith, recalls St Paul as planter of that faith, and exhorts that all private and social life in Malta rest on the foundation which St Paul laid: Jesus Christ. It concludes with an apostolic blessing.
This apparently pious document, however, is a smooth exercise in rhetorical camouflage, using the language of Tradition to consolidate the authority of the conciliar usurper and prepare a people historically faithful to the true Church for assimilation into the coming neo-religion.
Liturgical Piety as a Veil for Illegitimate Authority
John XXIII opens with an ostensibly edifying recollection of Acts 28 and the Maltese hospitality toward St Paul, proceeding to designate Muench as his Legate. The crucial doctrinal problem is not in isolated phrases such as the affirmation that there is “no other foundation” than Christ (cf. 1 Cor 3:11), which is Catholic in itself, but in the usurpation of papal style and prerogative by one who inaugurated the revolution later codified by the so‑called Vatican II.
From the perspective of integral Catholic teaching prior to 1958, several immovable principles apply:
– Prima Sedes a nemine iudicatur (the First See is judged by no one) presupposes that he who occupies the See is Catholic. A public, pertinacious favorer of condemned novelties cannot even validly accede to, much less retain, the office. Pre‑conciliar theologians such as St Robert Bellarmine, Wernz-Vidal, and Cardinal Billot teach that a manifest heretic is outside the Church and therefore cannot be its head or visible principle of unity.
– Canon 188 §4 of the 1917 Code states that any cleric who publicly defects from the faith vacates his office ipso facto, without declaration.
By convoking the aggiornamento that would enthrone religious liberty, collegiality, and ecumenism in defiance of the Syllabus of Errors and Quanta Cura, John XXIII placed himself diametrically against the magisterium of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII. The Malta letter must be read as an act of a paramasonic “pontiff” whose entire program contradicts the integral magisterial line he mimics.
Thus the first and gravest issue: the document is an instance of simulatio, the unauthorized appropriation of papal voice to an anti-papal agenda. The Malta commemoration is not innocent; it is one tactic in enveloping historically Catholic nations in the prestige of the new regime.
Factual Cosmetics: Selective Memory and Sanitized History
On the factual level, the letter:
– Correctly references St Paul’s shipwreck on Malta and his three-month stay (Acts 28:1-11).
– Alludes to Malta’s long reputation for fidelity to the Catholic faith.
– Notes correctly that St Paul laid the foundation which is Christ.
But these true elements are redeployed with telling omissions:
1. John XXIII leaves entirely unmentioned:
– Malta’s concrete duties toward the public reign of Christ the King as taught shortly before by Pius XI in Quas primas (1925), where it is affirmed that “the state is happy not by one means, and man by another,” and that rulers must publicly acknowledge Christ and His Church.
– The aggressive anti-Catholic forces of Socialism, Freemasonry, and Liberalism which Pius IX in the Syllabus identified as mortal enemies of Christ’s social kingship.
– The grave modernist infiltration denounced by St Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi dominici gregis, already at work among clergy and laity worldwide.
2. Instead of warning Malta against the suicidal “reconciliation” with modern civilization condemned in Syllabus proposition 80, the letter presents a tranquil, sentimental narrative where fidelity is merely celebrated, never armed and instructed.
This is not accidental. Silence here functions as falsification. A people praised for their steadfast faith are left undefended before the very revolution which John XXIII is about to unleash. The genuine popes armed nations; the conciliar usurper flatters them.
Soft Rhetoric as Symptom of Doctrinal Evasion
The linguistic profile of the letter is a key symptom.
1. Sentimental naturalism
John XXIII writes of Malta’s “clemency of heaven,” “fish-filled bays,” “fruitful fields,” and the “good nature” of inhabitants. Such motifs are not wrong in se; earlier popes also praised temporal blessings. But here, natural prosperity and “good disposition” are foregrounded, while supernatural combat is barely implied.
The tone is soft, diplomatic, devoid of the sharp supernatural realism characteristic of pre-1958 papal writings, which constantly:
– recall sin, judgment, hell, the narrow path;
– condemn specific errors by name;
– warn states against secularism and indifferentism.
In Quas primas, Pius XI confronts laicism as a “plague” and demands that rulers subject law, education, and public life to Christ’s authority. John XXIII, writing to a historically strategic Catholic bastion, omits any such demand. This silence calls into question his intentions: a true successor of Pius XI, on the eve of an “ecumenical council,” would repeat, not erase, that teaching.
2. Dehistoricized praise of Malta’s fidelity
He cites the old rhythm:
“Ex quo fidem recepisti, Recidiva non fuisti, Civitas praenobilis.”
(“Since you received the faith, you have not fallen back, most noble city.”)
But Malta’s fidelity is not situated within the broader assault of modern errors. By abstracting the praise from present dangers, John XXIII neutralizes it into a harmless compliment. True papal style binds praise to obligation: cui multum datum est, multum quaeretur (“to whom much is given, much will be required” – cf. Luke 12:48). Here, obligation toward the integral faith is flattened into generic “keep your faith” exhortation, devoid of concrete doctrinal teeth.
3. The rhetorical appropriation of St Paul
John XXIII emphasizes that St Paul did not allow himself to be outdone in generosity, preached with miracles, and implanted the “Catholic faith, which shines with pure soundness.” The words are Catholic; the context is not.
For St Paul:
– fiercely anathematized any perversion of the Gospel (Gal 1:8-9);
– resisted Peter to the face when dissimulation endangered truth (Gal 2:11);
– described the Church as “the pillar and ground of truth” (1 Tim 3:15).
To invoke Paul while preparing to convene an assembly that would affirm religious liberty and ecumenism in conflict with the Syllabus (errors 15-18, 77-80) is cynical. The letter uses Paul’s name to sanctify an authority that intends to do what Paul condemned: tolerate and promote “another gospel.”
Theological Dislocation Beneath Orthodox Phrases
Theologically, several layers of dislocation emerge.
1. The foundation: Christ without His exclusive Church
The text culminates in the assertion:
“ut privatae et sociali vitae nullum aliud ponatur fundamentum praeter id, quod a Sanctissimo Apostolo positum iis est, Iesus Christus.”
(“that in private and social life no other foundation be laid than that which the Most Holy Apostle placed for them: Jesus Christ.”)
This is materially correct (1 Cor 3:11). Yet in the context of John XXIII’s program and the subsequent conciliar sect, it is a classic modernist half-truth.
Before 1958, the magisterium always immediately linked Christ the foundation with:
– the visible, exclusive Catholic Church;
– her doctrinal authority;
– the duty of states to recognize and favor the true religion.
Pius IX in the Syllabus:
– condemns proposition 15 that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which guided by the light of reason he shall consider true”;
– condemns proposition 55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.”
Pius XI in Quas primas insists that both individuals and states must publicly submit to Christ and His Church; only then will true peace and order follow.
John XXIII’s phrasing (“foundation” as Christ) omits the necessary specification: Christ as confessed in the one Roman Catholic Church, excluding all error and false worship, demanding subordination of civil laws to His law. This omission is not benign. In post-conciliar usage, “Christ” is repeatedly invoked to relativize concrete ecclesial claims and to justify pluralistic “Christian” or “religious” foundations for society. Language that sounds orthodox becomes a solvent of orthodoxy.
2. Silence regarding the One True Church and her rights
Notably absent are:
– Any affirmation that Malta must remain explicitly and exclusively Catholic.
– Any recall that Protestantism and other sects are condemned as false religions (Syllabus 18).
– Any reference to the duty of civil rulers to legislate according to Catholic teaching, to protect true worship, and to repress public offenses against God.
Instead, we encounter generalities about faith as “bond of concord” and “pledge of happiness,” terms elastic enough to be appropriated by the conciliar ecumenical agenda. The letter’s “Catholic” vocabulary is deployed in a way entirely compatible with the imminent shift toward religious liberty and inter-confessional cooperation that betrays the Syllabus and Quas primas.
3. Convenient amnesia about Modernism
By 1960, the errors condemned in Lamentabili and Pascendi had not vanished; they had migrated into seminaries, universities, and episcopates. A true Pope, contemplating a major anniversary and sending a Legate, would:
– Explicitly warn against rationalism, indifferentism, biblical modernism, and moral laxity.
– Recall that denial of dogma’s immutability, of Scriptural inerrancy, or of the uniqueness of the Church is anathematized.
– Insist that any national celebration deepen adherence to pre-existing condemnations of liberalism and false freedoms.
John XXIII’s letter is utterly devoid of such note. This silence, combined with his practical rehabilitation of theologians and currents previously censured, reveals that the text is part of a broader strategy: to retain the external trappings of pre-conciliar language while emptying it of its militant, anti-modernist content.
Symptomatic of the Conciliar Revolution: Pious Forms as Trojan Horse
This short letter exemplifies a pattern that defines the conciliar sect:
1. Continuity of form, rupture of substance
– Use of Latin;
– Reference to Scripture and saints;
– Bestowal of a “Legate” to preside at solemn liturgies;
– Benediction “ex cathedra” style language.
All outward forms of papal Catholicity are preserved, yet they are wielded by one whose subsequent actions inaugurate the overthrow of precisely the doctrinal positions those forms once served.
This corresponds to the modernist tactic unmasked by St Pius X: retain formulas, alter meanings; speak reverently of “Christ,” “Church,” “tradition,” while quietly inverting what those terms denote. It is the ecclesial application of simia Dei—the apeing of God—where the abomination of desolation sits in the holy place (cf. Matt 24:15), clothed in familiar vesture.
2. Instrumentalization of local fidelity
Malta, praised as “Christian name’s stronghold,” is being:
– symbolically annexed to John XXIII’s authority;
– framed as joyfully united to his “apostolic” program;
– deprived of a clear warning against the doctrinal and liturgical devastation that his council will unleash.
Thus the island’s historic fidelity is subtly redirected from the perennial magisterium—Pius IX, Leo XIII, St Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII—to the person of the usurper who will collaborate in dismantling that magisterium’s practical consequences. This is spiritual exploitation.
3. Reduction of supernatural militancy to civic edification
Authentic papal documents about nations (e.g., Pius XI on Mexico, Pius XII on various countries) linked commemorations to calls for:
– conversion,
– penance,
– defense against concrete ideological enemies.
Here, there is only benign optimism:
“Futuri aevi eventus — id paternis votis cupimus — eiusmodi sint, qui rerum felicitates et prosperitates gignant.”
(“May the events of the future age be such, which produce happiness and prosperity of affairs.”)
Such language, while not intrinsically evil, is symptomatic of a naturalistic orientation: the highest expressed wish is “happiness and prosperity” rather than perseverance in the integral faith unto martyrdom if necessary. The supernatural is domesticated into a vague blessing over temporal wellbeing.
The Betrayal of Quas Primas and the Social Kingship of Christ
To expose the inner bankruptcy of this letter, it must be measured explicitly against Pius XI’s doctrine in Quas primas (1925), a binding pre-1958 magisterial text.
Pius XI teaches:
– That the disasters of the world stem from rejecting Christ’s law in private, family, and public life.
– That there will be no lasting peace until individuals and states recognize and submit to the reign of Christ.
– That the Church cannot renounce her right to freedom and independence in teaching, legislating, and judging.
– That rulers sin if they refuse public veneration and obedience to Christ and His Church.
– That liberalism, laicism, and religious indifferentism are to be opposed, not embraced.
Evaluated against this:
– John XXIII’s letter contains no demand that Malta, as a state, bind its laws to the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
– It contains no affirmation that the Catholic faith is the only true religion, in continuity with Syllabus 21.
– It offers no condemnation of liberal errors encroaching on all nations.
– It replaces the clarion call for Christ’s public kingship with gentle, ambiguous exhortations easily co-opted by the neo-church that will soon promote “religious liberty” and “dialogue” as supreme civic virtues.
Thus the letter, despite orthodox snippets, functions as an implicit rejection of Quas primas’ militant insistence on the social Kingship of Christ, exactly at a moment when that doctrine needed to be defended against the rising tide of secular democracy and ecumenism. Silence in the face of binding doctrine is not neutrality; it is betrayal.
From Malta to the “Church of the New Advent”: A Predictable Trajectory
Seen from the symptomatic level, “Undeviginti saecula” is a small but telling cog in the machinery that produced the conciliar sect, the “Church of the New Advent,” which:
– enthroned religious liberty against the Syllabus;
– embraced false ecumenism, treating heretical and schismatic communities as “sister churches” instead of objects of conversion;
– promoted collegiality and democratization in contradiction to the monarchical constitution of the Church;
– tolerated or praised Modernist exegesis condemned by Lamentabili;
– desacralized the Most Holy Sacrifice into a communal meal, leading multitudes into idolatry and sacrilege.
This letter prepares the psychological ground:
– The faithful are habituated to revere John XXIII as a legitimate successor of Peter speaking in continuity with the past.
– National celebrations are placed under his “apostolic” authority without any reminder that this authority is contingent upon fidelity to the very doctrines he is about to subvert.
– Malta’s noble past is emotionally tethered to the person of the usurper, not to the dogmatic line of true popes he is preparing to contradict.
The result: when the revolution explodes, resistance is paralyzed. The wolf has spent years wearing the fleece.
Conclusion: A Devout Mask Covering Systemic Apostasy
In isolation, a superficial reading of “Undeviginti saecula” might see only a courteous papal brief: honorable mention of St Paul, praise of Malta, and exhortation to root life in Christ. But read with Catholic intelligence, under the light of pre-1958 doctrine and the subsequent deeds of John XXIII and his successors in the conciliar sect, the document reveals itself as:
– a calculated use of traditional language to legitimize an illegitimate authority;
– an exercise in strategic omission where the fiercest teachings of Pius IX–Pius XII on liberalism, Modernism, and Christ’s social Kingship vanish;
– a pastoral theater in which true militancy of faith is replaced by sentimental, naturalistic benedictions.
The theological and spiritual bankruptcy lies not in a single overt heretical sentence, but in the systematic refusal to confess the whole Catholic truth at the moment it was most necessary. That refusal, coming from the one claiming to speak as Vicar of Christ, is the signature of apostasy.
Those who hold fast to the integral Catholic faith must therefore:
– refuse to recognize such documents as genuine papal magisterium;
– measure every such text against the firm, anti-liberal, anti-modernist magisterium of the true popes;
– guard nations like Malta—historically steadfast—from being enlisted as ornaments for the conciliar revolution.
The only safe foundation remains, as St Paul preached and the pre-1958 magisterium authoritatively expounded: Christ the King reigning through His one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church, intolerant of error, sovereign over individuals, families, and states, until every tongue confesses Him and every knee bows, not to the “spirit of the age,” but to the crucified and Eucharistic Lord.
Source:
Undeviginti saecula – Ad Cardinalem Muench, quem legatum deligit, ut celebritatibus praesit in insula melita agendis ob undeviginti impleta saecula, ex quo S. Paulus apostolus ad eam oram naufragus ad… (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025