The text is a brief allocution by John XXIII to participants of an international Ciceronian congress in Rome (April 7, 1959). He courteously praises their dedication to Cicero and classical Latin, deplores the neglect of such studies in a technocratic age, extols ancient wisdom as a noble preparation for higher things, and cites Augustine’s praise of Cicero’s “Hortensius” as an example of moral elevation through classical reading. He concludes with paternal good wishes.
Ciceronian Enthronement in Place of the Social Reign of Christ
John XXIII’s speech appears innocuous: a cultured appreciation of Latin eloquence, a polite encouragement to humanistic studies. Yet precisely in its brevity and apparent harmlessness it reveals the programmatic shift that will mark the conciliar revolution: the replacement of integral supernatural Catholicism with a baptised humanitarianism, the soft launch of a religion where Cicero can stand as functional prophet and “aurora” of the Gospel, and where the Kingship of Christ is dissolved into general moral uplift.
Already in 1959, before the Council, we see the future “good pope” manifesting a mentality that the pre-1958 Magisterium had relentlessly condemned: naturalism, overconfidence in “culture,” and the quiet displacement of the full supernatural order by a harmonious alliance with pagan wisdom, presented without the note of the Cross and without the demand for conversion.
Factual Level: Selective Humanism Without the Catholic Conclusion
1. The core message
John XXIII:
“We congratulate you strongly on the excellent studies in which you are energetically and diligently engaged, so that you may investigate more and more deeply the works of the greatest author of Latin eloquence and pass on to many others the light drawn from them.”
He:
– Praises intensive study of Cicero.
– Quotes Cicero’s own panegyric on letters (“Haec studia adulescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant…”).
– Laments technocratic mentality that neglects humanities in favour of calculation and machines.
– Claims that ancient Greek and Roman wisdom was often a “dawn” leading to the Gospel.
– Singles out Cicero for recognizing a Creator, natural law, justice, and virtues.
– Cites Augustine’s Confessions as testimony of moral awakening through Cicero.
– Wishes that the congress participants, inspired by ancient wisdom, prefer enduring spiritual goods over transient things.
On the surface, nothing scandalous seems to appear. Classical culture in itself is a legitimate good; the pre-conciliar Popes praised it when subordinated to the Faith. However:
– There is no call to the non-Catholic participants to submit to the one true Church of Christ, which alone dispenses salvation. This silence directly contradicts the anti-indifferentist, anti-liberal teaching reiterated by Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– There is no mention of the objective necessity of the Catholic faith and baptism for salvation as binding on all nations (against Syllabus, propositions 15–18, condemned).
– Pagan virtue and Ciceronian ethics are held up as nearly self-sufficient formative lights; their subordination to the unique, absolute authority of Revelation is at best implied, never sharply confessed.
– The allocution is delivered by the very man who will convoke the council which enthrones the program of “reconciliation with modern civilization” explicitly condemned in Syllabus 80.
Thus, the “fact pattern” is: a “pope-elect” addressing a gathering “of all nations,” praising a pagan moralist and the humanities, without any assertion that the same nations must publicly recognize Christ the King and the Roman Church as the exclusive ark of salvation. This omission, in the context of magisterial clarity before 1958, is itself a sign of deviation.
Linguistic Level: Courteous Naturalism and the Gentle Eclipse of Supernatural Absolutes
The rhetoric is revealing:
– Tone: soft, sentimental, paternal, benevolent; entirely devoid of prophetic sharpness.
– Vocabulary: “humanitas,” “comitas,” “praeclara studia,” “lucem haustam,” “celsa mens,” “caduca et noxia,” all language that flatters cultured sensibilities but never confronts with the absolute necessity of *fides Catholica* (Catholic faith) and *poenitentia* (repentance).
– Evansive religious reference: Christ is barely invoked; the sole explicit Christological element is indirect—calling Christ the sun “oriens ex alto” after mentioning Greek and Roman wisdom as aurora. The stress falls on Cicero; Christ is an ornament.
John XXIII states:
“Providentissimo disponente Deo, veterum Graecorum et Latinorum sapientia Evangelii Christi, qui est sol ‘oriens ex alto’, saepe monitrix aurora fuit. In iis Cicero eximium gradum et locum obtinet…”
Translation (emphasis added):
“By the most provident disposition of God, the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Latins was often like a warning dawn for the Gospel of Christ, who is the sun ‘rising from on high’. Among them Cicero holds an outstanding place…”
What is the problem?
– The ordering is inverted. Instead of clearly asserting: “All natural wisdom finds its judgment and fulfilment only by submitting to Christ and His Church, outside of which it is insufficient and in part gravely erroneous,” he romanticizes a continuum from Cicero to Christ.
– He calls Cicero’s moral teaching a kind of prophetic prelude. But:
– Cicero defended idolatry and a State cult; he did not adore the Holy Trinity.
– True prophetic role belongs to the Old Testament and to divine Revelation, not to pagan philosophers as quasi-legislators of Christian ethics.
– The rhetorical strategy is to build consensus around a lowest-common-denominator humanism: men of all nations, united in appreciating classical virtue, can feel implicitly “close” to the Gospel without the stumbling block of dogma, hierarchy, and exclusive claims.
This is not neutral; it is the linguistic dress of modernist irenicism. It prefigures the Council’s ambiguous exaltation of “the signs of the times,” “rays of truth” in all religions, and the dialectic replacement of mission with dialogue. It is a shift from the imperative *converte te ad Ecclesiam* (convert to the Church) to the soothing compliment: “Your culture is already an aurora of Christ.”
Theological Level: Conflict with Pre-1958 Magisterium
Measured by the unchanging doctrine (the only valid criterion), this allocution suffers from grave theological deficiencies and symptomatic modernist tendencies.
1. Silence on the Unique Necessity of the Catholic Church
Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, condemns:
– 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”
– 16–18: the idea that any religion suffices or that Protestantism is just another form of true Christianity.
Yet John XXIII, before an international assembly, speaks only of:
– Humanistic eloquence.
– Moral uplift from Cicero.
– Ancient wisdom as a “dawn.”
He does not even hint that:
– The same God who providentially permitted pagan glimpses of natural law has commanded all men to hear the Church (Matt 18:17) and that “there is no other name under heaven” than Jesus Christ through His Church, as Pius XI restated in *Quas Primas*: peace and order are possible only in the Kingdom of Christ, which is the Church.
The omission is not accidental; it fits the conciliar agenda: tone down exclusive claims; avoid offending “all nations;” replace mission with cultural appreciation. From the perspective of integral Catholic teaching, such silence before a mixed audience is a dereliction of duty and a tacit endorsement of religious indifferentism.
2. Humanism Without the Cross
The allocution:
– Commends Cicero for recognizing a Creator, praising natural law, faith, truthfulness.
– Cites Ciceronian passages about virtuous courage and justice, calling them a kind of prophecy of Christian moral law.
Nowhere does John XXIII:
– Distinguish between natural virtues and supernatural virtues.
– State that without grace, fallen man cannot attain salvific justice; that pagan “virtues” can be splendid vices if not ordered to the true God.
– Insist that any truth or goodness in Cicero is subordinate and judged by the fullness of Revelation.
But pre-1958 theology—expressed by the Fathers, by Trent, by Leo XIII in “Aeterni Patris,” by Pius X in condemning Modernism—never allowed natural virtue to be treated as a quasi-autonomous foundation on which one can build a new “Christian humanism” friendly to all, leaving aside the scandal of the Cross.
This allocution subtly endorses a religiously diluted humanism:
– The true supernatural order is implicitly reduced to “enduring goods” glimpsed already by pagans.
– Augustine is instrumentalized to validate an admiration for Cicero, whereas Augustine himself sharply denounces pagan pride and false worship once enlightened by grace.
3. Minimization of Original Sin and Need for Grace
When John XXIII laments technocrats becoming like “cold machines,” he attributes the danger primarily to:
– Excessive devotion to calculations and mechanisms.
– Neglect of humanistic culture.
He proposes as remedy:
“…it must be more ardently acquired that which nourishes and adorns the soul, lest miserable mortals should exist cold, hard and devoid of love, like the machines which they construct.”
But integral Catholic teaching locates the root of this dehumanization in:
– Original sin.
– Loss of the sense of God.
– Rejection of Christ’s reign and His law.
Pius XI in *Quas Primas* makes it explicit: the social apostasy and wars of the age flow from nations casting off Christ and His law, not from mere technical efficiency. Pius IX, in the appended texts to the Syllabus, unmasks Freemasonry and liberalism as systematic rebellion against the Church—not as a lack of Cicero.
By replacing:
– The need for supernatural faith and sacramental life
with:
– The need for classical culture and moral refinement,
John XXIII moves on naturalistic terrain. This is precisely the modernist error condemned in *Lamentabili sane* and *Pascendi*: reducing religion to ethical elevation derived from human experience.
4. Confusion of Pagan “Aurora” with Divinely Established Economy
To say that Greek and Roman wisdom was “often” the dawn of the Gospel can be tolerated only if we add:
– That Salvific Revelation is entirely gratuitous.
– That any pagan approximation is dark, mixed with grave error, and absolutely incapable of saving without explicit or implicit submission to the true God and the true Church.
The allocution suppresses this precision and instead flatters a Ciceronian congress: their idol is placed on a pedestal as quasi-forerunner of Christ. This harmonizing rhetoric:
– Resonates with the conciliar sect’s later thesis that “elements of sanctification and truth” scattered in religions are vehicles of grace.
– Directly conflicts with the anti-modernist insistence that Revelation is not the product of religious genius or moral evolution (*Lamentabili*, 20–22, 58–60).
By praising Cicero and ancient wisdom in this way, John XXIII semantically feeds the later ecumenical and interreligious relativism: if the pagan moralist can be celebrated as “aurora Evangelii,” why not the confessions of other “religions” as partial realizations of the same “Christian” values? This is the theological virus encapsulated in refined Latin.
Symptomatic Level: Early Manifesto of the Conciliar Sect’s Program
This short speech, read in light of Catholic doctrine before 1958 and of the subsequent revolution, is not an isolated courtesy text; it is a symptom. Several systemic traits of the future conciliar pseudo-magisterium are visible in miniature:
1. Primacy of Culture Over Dogma
– Instead of starting from the dogma that the Church is a perfect society with divine rights over nations (Syllabus 19, 21, 55), John XXIII begins from human culture.
– The Catholic note is subordinate, almost decorative. Cicero, not Christ the King, stands at the centre of praise to “all nations” gathered in Rome.
This inversion prefigures:
– The cult of “dialogue” and “culture” of Vatican II.
– The refusal to proclaim the rights of Christ over States, condemned by Pius XI as the root of modern disorder.
2. Naturalistic Human Dignity Without Combat Against Error
The allocution is devoid of:
– Any condemnation of the false principles corroding the age: liberalism, socialism, Freemasonry, laicism, religious indifferentism.
– Any warning—commanded by previous Popes—against secret societies and ideologies that pervert law and education.
Instead:
– It laments lack of Latin, as if the cure for apostasy were more Ciceronian eloquence instead of the restoration of the Most Holy Sacrifice and the confession of the one true Church.
Compare:
– Pius IX explicitly exposes the “synagogue of Satan” (Masonic sects) and the liberal error of separating Church and State.
– John XXIII: silence on the supernatural enemy; gentle humanism about “machines.”
This contrast is not accidental. It reveals a change from militant supernatural clarity to humanitarian softness—fertile soil for Modernism.
3. Integration of Pagan Elite into a “Catholic” Horizon Without Conversion
The speech addresses an international intellectual elite. John XXIII:
– Affirms their work.
– Offers them Ciceronian and Augustinian motifs.
– Gives a generic blessing.
But there is:
– No insistence on the obligation of every learned man to submit intellect and will to Revelation.
– No explicit rejection of the liberal thesis that human reason is “sole arbiter” of truth (Syllabus 3–4).
This omission incarnates the conciliar sect’s praxis:
– Keep elites comfortable.
– Offer Christianity as cultural “completion.”
– Omit the hard demand: abandon errors, repudiation of false creeds, public submission to Christ’s vicar (which he himself was not, but which the true Papacy always demanded).
Exposure of the Underlying Bankruptcy
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, several grave points emerge:
1. Reduction of Supernatural Order to Aesthetic Morality
– Poetry, rhetoric, and humanistic education are good only insofar as they are strictly subordinated to and purified by the Faith.
– Here they are presented as quasi-salvific antidote to dehumanization, with minimal reference to the necessity of grace and dogma.
This is a betrayal of the fundamental Catholic principle:
Gratia non destruit, sed perficit naturam (grace does not destroy but perfects nature),
which also implies:
– Nature without grace is wounded, darkened, and cannot be idolized.
– To present natural culture as almost self-standing is to fall into the naturalism condemned repeatedly by the pre-conciliar Magisterium.
2. Strategic Silence as Method: Tacere de Fide, Loqui de Cultura
The most damning element is not what is said, but what is consistently unsaid:
– No mention of sin.
– No mention of the Cross.
– No mention of the Most Holy Sacrifice, sacraments, or final judgment.
– No call to conversion or condemnation of false worship.
Pius XI in *Quas Primas* links the social disorder of the world to the refusal to recognize Christ’s royal rights in private and public life. John XXIII, speaking to “all nations” in Rome, chooses instead to speak only of Cicero’s role and Latin eloquence.
Such systemic omission is precisely what Modernism uses to dissolve truth:
– It claims fidelity to tradition at the level of language (“providentissimo Deo… Evangelii Christi…”),
– While in practice choosing topics and tones that neutralize the scandal of exclusive Catholic claims.
3. Preparation for Religious Relativism and the Cult of Man
The praising of pagan moral insight as “aurora Evangelii” without sharp doctrinal boundary:
– Anticipates the Council’s exaltation of “elements of truth and sanctification” in false religions, used later to justify false ecumenism and interreligious syncretism.
– Paves the way for the “cult of man” declared by the same conciliar sect: man, culture, conscience, and universal values become the implicit reference point, not the sovereign rights of Christ the King and His true Mystical Body.
Once religion is rhetorically fused with “humanistic values,” and the supernatural claims of the Church are relegated to the background, the door opens to:
– Religious liberty in the condemned sense.
– Ecumenical relativism.
– The practical denial of the Syllabus and of all anti-modernist teaching.
4. The Role of John XXIII as Inaugurator of the Conciliar Project
This allocution is an early piece of evidence:
– John XXIII does not speak with the voice of Pius IX or Pius X.
– He does not wield the doctrinal sword against liberal, masonic, or modernist currents.
– He courteously crowns a pagan moralist before representatives of “all nations” without insisting on the only Name that saves and the only Church that teaches infallibly.
In light of the doctrinal rule that a public, pertinacious promoter of modernist principles cannot be head of the Church—*non potest esse caput quod non est membrum* (he who is not a member cannot be head)—such texts are not harmless anecdotes but juridical and theological evidence of an emerging anti-magisterium.
Conclusion: From Ciceronian Compliments to the Abomination of Desolation
When measured against the immutable doctrine of the Church before 1958:
– The allocution’s positive content (love for Latin, recognition of the value of serious study) can be accepted only if rigorously subordinated to:
– The absolute Kingship of Christ.
– The exclusive salvific role of the Catholic Church.
– The condemnation of errors that oppose this order.
– In this text, that subordination is absent. The supernatural is implicit, aestheticized, secondary. The dominant note is a cultured, optimistic humanism that refuses to confront the doctrinal and moral catastrophe of the age.
Therefore:
– The allocution is theologically and spiritually bankrupt as a papal act: it fails in its duty to teach, to warn, and to call to conversion.
– It stands as a small but telling brick in the construction of the conciliar sect:
– A religion that flatters human culture,
– Silences the demands of dogma,
– And prepares the enthronement of man where only the Crucified King has rights.
Against this, the pre-1958 Magisterium remains the only standard:
– Christ must reign socially and publicly, not Cicero.
– All nations and all cultures are ordered, under pain of perdition, to the one Church founded on Peter, according to the infallible teaching of true Popes.
– Any discourse to “all nations” in Rome that withholds these truths and offers instead a Ciceronian fellowship has already departed from the path of the Catholic Religion.
Source:
Allocutio ad eos qui Romae primum Ciceronianum Conventum ex omnibus nationibus egerunt (die VII m. Aprilis, A. D. MCMLIX) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025