On 15 December 1958, John XXIII delivered a secret consistory allocution in the Apostolic Palace: he thanked civil rulers and the world for their congratulations on his election, praised the universal sympathy shown to the “pope” as a sign of the Church’s vitality, lamented persecution of Catholics in Communist China, called for fidelity to the Roman See, condemned illicit episcopal consecrations without “Apostolic mandate,” and announced the creation of 23 new “cardinals” to strengthen the Curia and global governance of the “Church.” In reality, this text is the early programmatic self-unveiling of the conciliar imposture: a sentimental, horizontal, and political manifesto which instrumentalizes genuine sufferings, empties the supernatural Primacy into diplomatic theatrics, and lays institutional foundations for the neo-church of Vatican II and its globalist, paramasonic agenda.
John XXIII’s Secret Consistory: Blueprint of the Coming Usurpation
Public Adulation as Substitute for Supernatural Authority
Factual level:
John XXIII opens by dwelling at length on the worldwide applause for his elevation: bishops, clergy, peoples “in towns and villages,” rulers, parliamentarians, workers, children, the sick, prisoners, non-Catholics and even those “who are not even called by the Christian name” are enumerated as sending him benevolent messages. He interprets this as a consoling sign that all these people wish to honor “the Head of the Catholic Church, the Roman Pontiff,” and as evidence of the Church’s moral authority in favor of “concord and peace among peoples.”
This rhetorical center of gravity is already inverted.
From the integral Catholic faith:
– The Church’s authority does not rest on the favor of nations but on divine institution. The First Vatican Council defined that the Roman Pontiff possesses a primacy of jurisdiction *by Christ’s own ordinance*, not from consent of princes or peoples (Pastor Aeternus, 1870).
– Pius IX, in the attached Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that the Church’s rights derive from civil authority and that the Roman Pontiff must reconcile himself with “progress, liberalism, and modern civilization” in the sense of accepting their apostate principles (Syllabus, 80).
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* taught that the catastrophe of the modern world flows precisely from having “removed Jesus Christ and His most holy law from their customs, from private, family, and public life,” and he demanded the public submission of states to Christ the King, not complacent delight in their empty courtesies.
Linguistic and symptomatic level:
Instead of beginning from *Christus Rex* and the necessity of conversion to the one true Church, John XXIII luxuriates in the sweet pathos of universal applause. The allocution saturates itself with:
– sentimental vocabulary (joy, sweetness, love, gratitude),
– humanistic enumeration of classes (workers, children, prisoners),
– and irenic praise of the goodwill of non-Catholics and non-Christians.
The underlying premise: broad human sympathy toward his person is a quasi-sacramental sign of ecclesial vitality. This is theological poison.
Theological exposure:
– Genuine papal teaching, before 1958, habitually interpreted worldly favor with grave suspicion. Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII constantly warned of the snares of governments, secret societies, liberalism, and modernist infiltration.
– Here, the “pope” reads secular honors as proof of the Church’s luminous moral charm, while ignoring the very warnings of Pius IX and Pius X against the paramasonic forces which boasted of conquering public power to enslave the Church (see Syllabus text; *Lamentabili* introduction and *Pascendi*).
– The text subtly shifts from *adoration of God* to admiration of the “immense Catholic family” as a sociological phenomenon: the Church held up as “tree” and “city” mainly to illustrate her capacity to attract universal sympathy, not to proclaim her exclusive soteriological necessity.
Thus from the outset we see: a humanistic cult of popularity displacing the supernatural note of *sancta, catholica, apostolica, romana*. This allocution is a preparatory apologetic for a “Church of the New Advent,” grounded in global approval rather than divine mandate.
Selective Compassion and the Instrumentalization of Martyrs in China
Factual level:
A long central section treats the persecution in China:
– He recalls imprisoned missionaries, exiled bishops, arrested Chinese clergy, expelled or impeded ordinaries.
– He laments attempts to sever Catholics from the Holy See.
– He denounces illicit episcopal consecrations performed without “Apostolic mandate,” declaring that from such sacrilegious consecrations “no jurisdiction can arise.”
– He calls these acts a way to “pave the road to schism,” a word which he claims “burns” his lips.
On the surface, these points are consonant with prior papal teaching: Pius XII’s encyclical *Ad Apostolorum Principis* (29 June 1958) indeed condemned the Communist-controlled “patriotic church” and illicit consecrations. The allocution quotes and presupposes that encyclical.
However, precisely here the allocution exposes its duplicity.
From the integral Catholic perspective:
1. Legitimate condemnation, weaponized selectively
John XXIII correctly states that consecrations without pontifical mandate, under state control, yield no jurisdiction and produce schismatic structures. This follows the consistent doctrine of papal primacy and the divine constitution of the Church (Vatican I, *Pastor Aeternus*; traditional canon law; Pius XII).
Yet:
– He applies this rigor only against the open Communist manipulation in China, where secular power manufactures a nationalist schism.
– He is utterly silent about the no less real and documented Masonic and liberal control of Western governments and elites condemned by earlier popes. The Syllabus explicitly unmasks the project of subjecting the Church to civil control, reshaping doctrine, education, episcopal nominations, property, and worship.
– He mentions the persecuting Communist apparatus but never names or unmasks the deeper revolutionary ideology in its theological dimension: atheistic materialism as a direct instrument of the “synagogue of Satan” already denounced by previous popes.
Symptomatic level:
The Chinese martyrs and confessors are not invoked to preach the universal, non-negotiable social Kingship of Christ over all regimes, East and West. They are used as moral capital to underline loyalty to the Roman See as institutional center, while the doctrinal battle against modernism, liberalism, false ecumenism, and religious indifferentism is conspicuously absent.
The gravest omission:
– No word on the necessity of the state’s submission to Christ the King (Pius XI, *Quas Primas*).
– No explicit restatement that extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church there is no salvation).
– No warning that “dialogue” with Communist or liberal regimes at the expense of truth is treason.
– No insistence on the obligation of rulers to reject materialist and anti-Christian legislation (condemned repeatedly in the Syllabus).
Instead, he cultivates an image of a compassionate, weeping global father, while carefully avoiding direct confrontation with the liberal West whose applause he had just celebrated. This is the embryo of Ostpolitik and of the conciliar ecumenical diplomacy: using genuine sufferings to legitimize a false “pontificate” that soon would capitulate doctrinally.
The Rhetoric of Obedience: Preparing for Future Obedience to Apostasy
A focal passage exhorts Chinese Catholics:
– to remain faithful to the “Vicar of Christ,”
– to reject false pastors,
– to accept sufferings rather than betray the unity with the Roman See.
In itself, this appeal to unity with the Petrine See reflects true Catholic dogma: *ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia* (where Peter is, there is the Church).
However, precisely in 1958 this becomes the hinge of deception.
Theological and symptomatic level:
– The same mouth that rightly condemns state-manufactured schismatic bishops in China will, in a few years, convoke the pseudo-council Vatican II, open the floodgates to religious liberty, collegiality, false ecumenism, the cult of man, and the Protestantized new rite—a revolution condemned in principle by the perennial Magisterium (Syllabus; *Quas Primas*; *Lamentabili*; *Pascendi*).
– The allocution forges a powerful emotional and moral association: fidelity to “John XXIII” in time of persecution = fidelity to Christ; resistance to his directions = schism. Once this equivalence is established, any future resistance to his modernist program can be branded, in the same psychological register, as akin to the Communist “patriotic church.”
This is a perverse inversion of roles:
– True doctrine: obedience is due to the Roman Pontiff as long as he is truly pope and commands within the bounds of divine and ecclesiastical law.
– True canonical theology (as presented in the provided Defense of Sedevacantism file, echoing Bellarmine and others): a manifest heretic is not a member of the Church and cannot be its head; public defection from the faith (1917 CIC can. 188.4) vacates office.
– When an apparent “pope” uses his authority systematically to undermine prior dogma, his appeals to obedience become tools of suicide, not bonds of unity.
This allocution constructs a rhetorical apparatus of obedience, precisely to a man who would soon promulgate a council and reforms contrary to the pre-1958 Magisterium. Therefore, the call to unity here functions as preparatory anesthesia: conditioning consciences to equate resistance to future novelties with Communist-style schism.
The Humanitarian Pathos and Silence on the Social Kingship of Christ
Linguistic level:
The text is marked by:
– repeated emphasis on “peace,” “concord,” “esteem,” and “humanity” of world leaders,
– emotional invocation of suffering children, workers, prisoners,
– a conspicuous absence of strong doctrinal affirmations on:
– the necessity of the Catholic faith for salvation,
– the objective guilt of false religions,
– the binding force of the Syllabus and anti-modernist condemnations,
– the obligation of states to acknowledge the reign of Christ the King.
Contrast with pre-1958 teaching:
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* bluntly attributes the world’s misery to the dethronement of Christ and insists that lasting peace is impossible until both individuals and states accept His rule; he explicitly condemns laicism and religious indifferentism as a “plague.”
– Pius IX in the Syllabus rejects religious freedom, the parity of all cults, and the subjection of Church to state.
– Pius X in *Pascendi* brands modernism the “synthesis of all heresies” and imposes strict measures against those who relativize dogma.
In the allocution:
– There is no reminder to rulers that they sin gravely if they do not submit legislation and public life to Christ and His Church.
– The warm mention of non-Catholics’ and non-Christians’ congratulations is not framed as an occasion to call them to conversion, but as a flattering sign of the Church’s “esteem” in the world.
This silent relativization is the most damning evidence:
Silentium de regno Christi publico et de necessitate conversionis est maxima accusatio. (Silence about the public reign of Christ and the necessity of conversion is the gravest indictment.)
Here modernist naturalism shows itself: moral capital, humanitarian sensitivity, and diplomatic prestige replace the proclamation of the Social Kingship.
Denouncing Schism in China While Engineering a Global Schism in Rome
A central contradiction emerges.
On one hand, John XXIII deplores as “schism” the state-controlled Chinese hierarchy that usurps jurisdiction without papal mandate. This denunciation is doctrinally sound.
On the other hand, within the same allocution he proceeds to:
– create a large batch of new “cardinals,” many of whom will be the architects and executors of the conciliar and post-conciliar revolution.
Notably included:
– Giovanni Battista Montini (Archbishop of Milan), future Paul VI, the very mastermind who will:
– promulgate the Protestantized new rite of the “Mass”,
– ratify religious liberty and collegiality against prior teaching,
– oversee the destruction of the Roman liturgy and discipline.
– Julius Döpfner, Franz König, and others known—by later documented history—to be leading promoters of aggiornamento, dialogue with atheism, ecumenism with heretics, and capitulation to secular ideologies.
– Several curial officials (Tardini, di Jorio, Bracci, Roberti, Jullien) instrumental in reorienting the machinery of governance.
The allocution itself boasts that:
– increasing the number of “cardinals” will make Roman Curia business more efficient,
– elderly or overburdened officials will be relieved,
– the structures will be better suited to handle worldwide tasks.
Symptomatic and theological level:
This is the institutional consolidation of the conciliar sect within the shell of Catholic forms: a strategic staffing of key positions with men predisposed to doctrinal deviation, under the banner of continuity.
Thus:
– While stigmatizing Beijing’s fabrication of a pseudo-hierarchy detached from Rome,
– John XXIII fabricates at Rome a pseudo-hierarchy which, while canonically regular in appearance, will shortly detach itself from the perennial Magisterium and the faith of all ages.
The essence of schism is not only territorial disobedience, but separation from the integral Catholic rule of faith. A hierarchy that preserves juridical lines while introducing heretical doctrines is a more subtle and destructive schism than a crude national church.
Consequently, the allocution’s moral indignation against the Chinese “patriotic church” is tragically hypocritical: it condemns the mirror while polishing the dagger.
Lack of Any Real Confrontation with Modernism and the Masonic Plot
Given the depth of prior papal warnings, one would expect a legitimate Roman Pontiff in 1958 to:
– reaffirm with vigor:
– the Syllabus of Errors,
– *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*,
– the condemnations of Freemasonry and secret societies as principal enemies of the Church, as recalled in the Syllabus text above,
– warn against the infiltration of modernist theology in seminaries, universities, and episcopates,
– recall that docility to secular ideologies is treason against Christ the King.
Instead, the allocution:
– is totally silent on modernism, despite its proven presence in European clergy and academia by 1958;
– is silent on the Masonic penetration described by previous popes as the chief architect of the “synagogue of Satan” warring against the Church;
– replaces vigilance with a soft-focus narrative of universal goodwill and tender feelings.
This silence is not accidental. It is programmatic.
The naturalistic and optimistic tone about humanity’s sympathy for the “pope” is exactly the rhetoric modernists employ to sweep aside the sharp anathemas of previous pontiffs as “pastoral problems of another age.” The allocution, in content and style, prepares the “hermeneutic of discontinuity disguised as continuity”: outwardly no explicit denial; effectively, a practical abrogation by omission.
Abuse of the Petrine Promise to Cement a False Obedience
At the end of the Chinese section, John XXIII invokes Christ’s words to Peter: “confirm thy brethren” (Luke 22:32). He presents himself as fulfilling this mandate through exhortations, prayers, and the call to unity.
But:
– The same divine text invoked to guarantee the indefectibility of the papacy also entails that no one manifestly teaching or promoting condemned errors can be recognized as the holder of that office.
– The doctrinal sources cited in the Defense of Sedevacantism file—Bellarmine, Wernz-Vidal, John of St. Thomas, Canon 188.4, *Cum ex Apostolatus Officio*—collectively affirm that a manifest heretic cannot be pope, and that public defection from the faith causes loss or nullity of office.
While this allocution itself is primarily preparatory in tone, its doctrinal vagueness, naturalistic rhetoric, and institutional choices mark the beginning of a trajectory fully realized in Vatican II and subsequent acts: promotion of religious liberty, ecumenism with heresy and paganism, degradation of the Most Holy Sacrifice into an anthropocentric assembly, and open cult of man.
Thus, the appeal to Luke 22:32 becomes, in historical hindsight, appropriated by a line of men who, by their words and deeds, subvert the very faith they claim to “confirm.”
From the standpoint of unchanging pre-1958 Catholic doctrine, such appropriation is illegitimate; to demand unconditional obedience to innovators is to weaponize the Petrine promise against Christ Himself.
Conclusion: A Smooth Prologue to the Abomination
This allocution, read in continuity with prior Catholic teaching and subsequent events, reveals itself as:
– not a simple pastoral address,
– but an expertly arranged prologue to the conciliar revolution.
Key elements of its bankruptcy:
– Exaltation of worldly applause as a supposed sign of ecclesial vitality, in direct tension with prior condemnations of liberal modern civilization.
– Humanitarian sentimentality in place of forthright proclamation of Christ’s exclusive Kingship and the necessity of conversion.
– Selective defense of papal authority against Chinese schismatics, while quietly installing within Rome the very personnel who will orchestrate global doctrinal and liturgical subversion.
– Total silence on modernism, Freemasonry, and condemned errors, in flagrant contrast with the vigilance commanded by Pius X and his predecessors.
– Emotional absolutization of obedience to the person of John XXIII, preparing the faithful to follow him and his successors even when they would later contradict prior Magisterium.
The allocution’s polished Latin, biblical citations, and references to Pius XII’s encyclical are not guarantees of orthodoxy; they are ornamental vestments covering the emergence of a paramasonic, conciliatory, and anthropocentric neo-church, masquerading as the Roman Catholic Church while dismantling, in stages, the doctrinal ramparts erected by genuine popes.
Against this, the only Catholic response—according to the immutable line of doctrine expressed in the Syllabus, *Quas Primas*, *Lamentabili*, *Pascendi*, and the classical theologians—is to:
– reject all modernist novelties and their structures,
– adhere to the perennial Magisterium up to 1958,
– refuse obedience to any “authority” that demands acceptance of condemned propositions,
– and hold fast to the integral Catholic faith: *unum Dominum Iesum Christum, unam veram Ecclesiam, unum regnum Christi super omnes gentes*.
Source:
Consistorium Secretum – Allocutio in consueta aula Palatii Apostolici Vaticani, die 15 mensis Decembris, anno MCMLVIII (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025