This radiophonic message of John XXIII, addressed to the hierarchy and faithful of the Philippine Islands at the close of a “missionary year” in 1959, praises their initiatives, exalts their zeal for propagating Catholic faith, encourages generosity for “sacred expeditions” and missionary works, and concludes with an ostensibly pious blessing invoking Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary. Behind the ornamented phrases of missionary enthusiasm, however, the text already manifests the subtle displacement of the true Catholic mission by a conciliatory, naturalized, and proto-conciliar vision that would soon mature into the conciliar revolution itself.
Quiet Preparation for Revolution under a Missionary Varnish
From Catholic Universality to Ambiguous Globalism
At the factual level, the message appears, at first glance, impeccably Catholic:
– It commends missionary fervour for the spread of Christ’s Kingdom.
– It recalls the universality of the Church, destined for all peoples.
– It cites II Peter and the Apocalypse on participation in the divine nature and the redeemed multitudes.
– It invokes the example of Pius XII’s desire that the Cross overshadow the ends of the earth.
– It praises the generosity and Catholic identity of the Filipino people.
These are elements which, taken in isolation and read through the lens of pre-1958 doctrine, would be unobjectionable. Yet this is precisely the method: the message uses orthodox vocabulary, but within the personal and historical context of the man who, a few years later as head of the conciliar sect, inaugurated the aggiornamento that would demolish the public reign of Christ the King, dilute the dogma of the necessity of the Catholic Church, and enthrone the cult of man.
The key symptom is not what is said once, but what is systematically omitted and how the entire text is framed.
– There is no assertion that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation, *extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*, as constantly taught (e.g. by the Fourth Lateran Council and the Council of Florence).
– There is no insistence that the missionary task is ordered to the explicit and exclusive conversion of pagans and heretics to the one true Church, against all errors, sects, and false religions, as reaffirmed by Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius XI.
– There is no warning against Freemasonry and anti-Christian liberal forces, which Pius IX in the *Syllabus* and Leo XIII in his encyclicals unmasked as principal conspirators against the Church and Christian civilization; rather striking silence, given the Philippines’ exposure to such currents.
– There is no doctrinal clarity regarding the social kingship of Christ—although the text speaks of the “Kingdom of Christ” and “Christi Regnum amplificandi causa,” it is left at the level of general religious expansion, detached from the uncompromising thesis of Pius XI in *Quas Primas* that public authority, laws, education, and society as such must submit to Christ’s royal rights.
In other words: the universality of the Church is mentioned, but its exclusive salvific necessity is muffled; missionary zeal is praised, but its precise content—conversion from error to dogmatic truth and submission to the one Church—is blurred into a safe, edifying rhetoric. This indirect relativization is the embryo of the conciliar apostasy.
The Velvet Language of Conciliation as Theological Symptom
The linguistic and rhetorical texture of the message already reveals the mentality that would give birth to the neo-church.
Characteristic features:
– A smooth, congratulatory, bureaucratically courteous tone: “Laus, gratulatio Nostra… gaudemus Nobis, gratulamur vobis… Volumus vos hac in re nulli esse secundos.”
– Persistent focus on “prosperous outcomes,” “success,” “splendid honour before God and the Church,” and national prestige: missionary work appears intertwined with national glory—“patriam vestram coram Deo et Ecclesia circumfundetis claro honoris nitore.”
– Appeals to collective generosity and organization (“in Ecclesiasticae Hierarchiae istius sollertia et in laicorum coetus concordi opera plurimum confidimus”) which, though in itself legitimate, is framed without the sharp supernatural edge of penance, mortification, doctrinal militancy, and the warfare against error and sin that mark the pre-1958 magisterial language.
This rhetoric is revealing not merely by style but by principle. Authentic pre-conciliar papal teaching—rooted in Trent, Vatican I, and the anti-liberal encyclicals—speaks with juridical precision, dogmatic clarity, and open denunciation of errors: liberalism, indifferentism, socialism, false “human rights” theories, religious freedom understood as equal civil status for error (condemned explicitly in the *Syllabus*, propositions 15–18, 77–80).
Here instead we see a carefully “positive,” harmonious messaging focused on encouragement, on recognition of national qualities, on non-combative exhortation. The vocabulary of combat—*militia Christi, pugna contra errores, condemnatio haereseon*—is replaced by reassuring compliments. The wolves are never named; only the sheep are flattered.
Such linguistic anesthetization is not accidental. It is the typical instrument of *Modernismus in habitu pastorali*: modernism in pastoral dress, which, as St. Pius X exposed in *Pascendi* and the condemned propositions of *Lamentabili sane exitu*, prefers ambiguity, evolutionary accents, and a “living” presentation that dissimulates its rupture with unchanging doctrine. Silence where condemnation is due is itself complicity.
Theological Emptiness Behind Pious Citations
If weighed against the unchanging Catholic theology before 1958, the message is theologically anemic. The citations of Scripture are orthodox; the isolated affirmation that the Cross brings salvation and the “thesaurus gratiae” is true. But the entire doctrinal framework required by the gravity of the times is absent.
Key omissions and their doctrinal significance:
1. Silence on the absolute necessity of the Catholic Church
– No mention that pagans, Jews, Muslims, heretics, and schismatics must be converted and reject their errors.
– No echo of Pius IX’s rejection of indifferentism (*Syllabus* 16–18) or of the condemnation of “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (*Syllabus* 15).
– By speaking generically of “ad lumen Dei et regnum omnes advoeantur gentes,” without specifying that this happens only through incorporation into the one true Church, under her divinely instituted authority, he prepares precisely the later conciliar semantics, where “People of God” and “Kingdom” become broader than the Catholic Church and are opened to a naturalistic ecumenism.
2. Silence on Christ’s social kingship in its political and juridical dimension
– The Philippines, by history, is a country deeply marked by Catholicism. A true Roman Pontiff, inflamed with the doctrine of *Quas Primas*, would recall that:
– Civil rulers and laws are bound to honour Christ publicly.
– The state must recognise the Catholic religion as the only true one and reject the liberal thesis of separation of Church and state (*Syllabus* 55, 77–80).
– Instead, the message reduces the fruits of missionary zeal to “honour” and “brightness” before God and the Church, with no explicit political-theological claim on civil authority or denunciation of liberal secularization. The supernatural Kingship is lowered into a bland inspirational motif, compatible with emerging democracy and religious pluralism.
3. Silence on modernism and masonic conspiracy
– In 1959, after the solemn condemnations of modernism by St. Pius X and the repeated warnings of Pius XI and Pius XII against anti-Christian forces and secret societies, a truly Catholic shepherd cannot speak of mission and international Catholic zeal without also warning against those organized enemies—Freemasonry, communism, secular liberalism, false ecumenism—that pervert nations.
– Yet the message offers no such warning. It praises structures, activities, and collective enthusiasm, but not once calls the faithful to discern and resist the conspiratorial systems condemned by Pius IX and Leo XIII as direct instruments of the “synagogue of Satan” (a language explicitly used in the Magisterium before 1958 against these sects).
– This omission is particularly grave given that the same man, John XXIII, would soon be the human instrument for summoning the very council through which these forces would infiltrate and reconfigure the visible structures into the conciliar sect.
The result is that the message, while free from explicit heresy in the narrow textual sense, is impregnated with what may be called *theological irenicism*: it refuses to articulate the hard edges of Catholic dogma and discipline that are indispensable for a true missionary spirit. This “kindness without clarity” is the mask of the revolution.
A Manifestation of the Conciliar Spirit in Embryo
Historically and symptomatically, this message cannot be read as a neutral 1959 exhortation. It must be read sub specie totius: in the light of what follows from the same source.
Several converging elements show its continuity with the conciliar disaster:
– The ethos: a “pastoral,” optimistic, human-resource management tone, rather than the commanding, doctrinally armed voice of a Pius IX or St. Pius X.
– The anthropology: confidence in natural “generous and bright character” of a nation, praising civic and national qualities alongside supernatural vocation, feeding a subtle cult of man and nation instead of crucified discipleship.
– The ecclesiology: emphasis on collaboration of hierarchy and laity in initiatives, without the parallel insistence on the divine constitution of the Church as a perfect society, endowed with sovereign rights independent of the state (directly contradicting modern democratic reductions condemned in the *Syllabus* 19–21, 39–42).
– The method: entirely positive mention of works, no mention of the necessity to root them in firm dogmatic formation, to combat errors, to denounce false sects and superstitions. This anticipates the later conciliar “dialogue” paradigm, where mission is reinterpreted as mutual enrichment, not conversion.
Such features are not accidental rhetorical nuances. They are the early fruits of the *aggiornamento* mentality, which:
– displaces the primacy of dogma with the primacy of “pastoral” tone,
– replaces the command to convert with the invitation to participate,
– empties the concept of the Kingdom of its juridical, confessional, and militant content,
– and thus paves the way to religious freedom, false ecumenism, and the cult of human dignity divorced from submission to Christ the King.
The integrity of Catholic doctrine, as reaffirmed up to Pius XII, leaves no space for this softening. Pius XI, in *Quas Primas*, teaches that peace and order are impossible until individuals and states recognize the royal rights of Christ and submit their laws and institutions to Him. Pius IX in the *Syllabus* condemns as errors:
– that the state may be religiously neutral,
– that all forms of worship may be positively granted public exercise,
– that progress and modern civilization can be reconciled with the Church by sacrificing her exclusive claims.
John XXIII’s message, by its tone and omissions, is aligned with precisely those tendencies that the authentic Magisterium denounced. It is the courteous smile that comes before the demolition.
Philippine “Missionary Year”: Zeal Without Doctrinal Edge
Examining the concrete content directed to the Philippines:
The message praises the initiative of a missionary year, the collaboration of clergy and faithful, and calls that they should be second to none in supporting missionary works.
On the surface this is laudable. But viewed from the vantage of integral Catholic faith:
– The Philippines, a historically Catholic land, is urged to support missions “far and wide” but is not admonished to preserve its own public and legal fidelity to the Catholic faith against encroaching liberalism and religious pluralism.
– There is no warning that toleration of false cults, masonic liberal constitutions, and secularized education stands under condemnation and cannot be reconciled with their “most splendid glory” as a Catholic people.
– There is no exhortation that the Most Holy Sacrifice (the authentic, propitiatory, sacrificial Mass) and the sacraments must remain at the centre—rather we hear managerial language about cooperation, generosity, and campaigns.
This is the pattern: encourage activity; remain silent on the war against error. That this same line of thought would later tolerate, approve, and celebrate the conciliar documents on religious freedom and ecumenism is not coincidence, but internal coherence.
Marian and Scriptural Piety without the Sword of Dogma
The conclusion of the message invokes the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Most Holy Rosary and cites II Peter 3:18: “Grow in grace and in the knowledge of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Invoking Our Lady and Scripture, however, imposes an obligation: *verbum Dei non est alligatum* (the word of God is not bound), and Marian piety in the true Catholic sense is always piety of doctrinal clarity and anti-heresy militancy. The Mother of God crushes all heresies not through sentimental devotions, but through the triumph of the faith she guarded intact.
Yet here:
– No Marian summons to penance, reparation, and doctrinal fidelity;
– No presentation of the Rosary as a weapon against heresy, Freemasonry, communism, and libertinism, as earlier pontiffs did;
– No connection between growth in the knowledge of Christ and submission of intellect and will to defined dogma and anti-modernist discipline (oath against modernism, condemnations of error, etc.).
In such conditions, Marian and biblical language is instrumentalized as a soothing religious perfume masking the odour of incipient betrayal.
Symptom of the Coming Usurpation and Its Fruits
From the perspective of unchanging Catholic theology prior to 1958, the deeper bankruptcy exposed by this text is threefold:
1. Subordination of supernatural mission to humanist optimism
The missionary ideal is wrapped in praise of human qualities, national virtues, and organized initiatives, sidelining:
– the radical demand of conversion,
– the necessity of state submission to Christ and His Church,
– the enmity between the City of God and the city of the world.
This naturalistic softening would soon justify “dialogue,” joint prayers with infidels, and recognition of false religions as paths of “values,” all condemned in substance by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
2. Strategic silence as method of revolution
No explicit heresy is proclaimed in this brief message: that is precisely its cunning. The revolution does not begin with frontal denials, but with:
– omission of condemnations,
– avoidance of precise dogmatic formulations,
– substitution of juridical clarity with affective encouragement.
St. Pius X exposed such tactics as characteristic of modernism: evasive, elusive, double-tongued, operating more by climate than by theses. This message is an example of such a climate being deliberately created at the highest level.
3. Preparation of the faithful for the conciliar sect
Messages of this type form consciences to expect:
– a “pope” who flatters nations and avoids condemnations,
– a “mission” that coexists with liberal states and religious pluralism,
– a Church that is less the uncompromising Ark of salvation, more a benevolent inspirational agency.
Once this mentality takes root, the conciliar reconfiguration, with its documents on religious liberty and ecumenism and its eventual sacrilegious, syncretistic rites, is received not as a rupture, but as the “natural development” of the same tone already inaugurated.
Thus, while the lines of this radiophonic message may read “Catholic” to the inattentive, its omissions, emphases, and historical position reveal it as part of the continuum of that paramasonic, anthropocentric orientation that would soon enthrone the abomination of desolation in the holy place.
Conclusion: The Only Authentic Missionary Program
Against the subcutaneous modernism reflected in this message, the authentic Catholic standard—unchanged before 1958 and binding still—can be synthesized:
– *Una fides, unus Dominus, unum baptisma* (one faith, one Lord, one baptism): there is no salvation nor true worship outside the Catholic Church.
– The mission ad gentes is ordered to the explicit conversion of individuals and nations to this Church, with the renunciation of false religions, sects, and errors.
– Christ the King must reign not only in hearts but in laws, schools, and public institutions; the liberal thesis of religious neutrality is condemned.
– The Church has the divine right and duty to condemn and exclude error, to denounce Modernism, Freemasonry, socialism, and all systems that undermine her rights and the salvation of souls.
– Pastoral charity without dogmatic clarity is betrayal; praise of zeal without doctrinal armour is seduction.
Any “missionary” discourse that refuses these principles, that replaces sharp dogma with soft rhetoric, that exalts activity while muting the war against heresy and liberalism, is not a harmless variation of style, but participation—whether conscious or not—in the great apostasy.
Source:
Christifidelibus Insularum Philippinarum, qui missionalem peregerunt annum, d. 6 m. Decembris A. 1959, Ioannes PP. XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025