On 28 March 1960, in a so‑called secret consistory, John XXIII delivers an allocution praising the functioning of the Roman Curia, lamenting persecution of clergy (notably invoking Aloysius Stepinac), extolling the recently concluded Roman Synod, solemnly announcing a new group of cardinals from various continents, and linking this expanded “College of Cardinals” with the preparation of a future ecumenical council. He presents these acts as manifestations of the unity, catholicity, vitality, and peace of the “Church,” oriented toward universal dialogue, concord among nations, and adaptation to contemporary circumstances. In reality, this text is an early programmatic manifesto of the conciliar usurpation: a serene self‑canonization of apostate structures preparing the demolition of the Catholic order under a pious veneer.
Programmatic Self-Legitimation of the Conciliar Revolution
Manifesto of a Usurper: Personal Authority against the Perennial Magisterium
From the first lines, John XXIII speaks as one who assumes undisputed authority over the Church, while his entire theological and practical orientation defies *lex credendi* and *lex orandi* as taught consistently until 1958.
He presents himself as the serene supervisor of a perfectly ordered Curia:
“affirmare gestimus saltem ad praesens usque tempus nihil extra ordinem habitum esse” – “we are eager to affirm that at least up to the present time nothing has taken place out of order.”
This is not a neutral phrase. It is a dogmatic-political claim: “nothing out of order” precisely in the period in which:
– condemned currents of *modernismus* (St Pius X, Pascendi; Lamentabili sane exitu) are rehabilitated in practice;
– the post‑war infiltration of liberal, ecumenical, and Masonic ideas intensifies;
– plans are already underway for a council that will enthrone principles explicitly condemned by the pre‑1958 Magisterium (Pius IX, Syllabus Errorum; Leo XIII; Pius X; Pius XI; Pius XII).
The allocution is, therefore, a juridico-moral whitewashing of an emerging parallel structure. When a putative “pope” congratulates himself that “nothing” has been disordered, while preparing to contradict binding condemnations of his predecessors, the dissonance is an objective sign of rupture. The perennial teaching obliges: a manifest rejection of prior magisterial doctrine places such a man outside the Church; a non‑Catholic cannot hold the Primacy. This conclusion is rooted in the doctrine articulated by St Robert Bellarmine and classical theology: *non christianus nullo modo est caput Ecclesiae* (a non-Christian in no way can be head of the Church).
The allocution must thus be read as an act of usurped authority attempting to normalize its own revolution.
Exploitative Invocation of Persecution to Mask Doctrinal Betrayal
A central emotional lever is the reference to suffering bishops and particularly to Aloysius Stepinac:
“maesto igitur animo egimus coetum, ut desideratissimi Cardinalis Aloisii Stepinac… sacram recoleremus memoriam… vexationes crudeles pluribus in locis ingravescere”
English sense: “with a sorrowful soul we have gathered in order to recall the sacred memory of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac… we reflect with grief upon cruel vexations growing in many places.”
At the factual level:
– Yes, communist regimes persecuted clergy and faithful. This is documented historically.
– Yes, Stepinac personally suffered for maintaining aspects of the Catholic faith.
But at the theological-symptomatic level, the invocation functions as immunization: persecution is used as an aura of legitimacy for the very hierarchy that is simultaneously preparing to disarm the Church doctrinally and politically.
What is systematically absent?
– No explicit reaffirmation that communism is intrinsically perverse and absolutely irreconcilable with the Catholic faith, as taught by Pius XI in Divini Redemptoris, or in continuity with the anti-Masonic, anti-liberal warnings of Pius IX’s Syllabus.
– No clear denunciation of the modernist apostasy within the structures themselves, which St Pius X had identified as the primary danger: *“the enemies of the Church are found in Her very bosom”* (paraphrase of Pascendi).
– No call to Catholic states for the public recognition of the social kingship of Christ, as defined in Pius XI’s Quas Primas; instead, a vague appeal to generic “liberty.”
This silence is not innocent. It manifests a deliberate redirection: attention is moved from internal doctrinal treason (modernism, liberalism, false ecumenism) to purely external oppression. The persecuted bishop is used as an icon while the persecuting ideologies’ spiritual equivalents infiltrate the very consistory that weeps over him. This is the essence of the conciliar tactic: sentimentalize suffering, evacuate doctrine.
The Roman Synod and the Coming Council: Laboratory of Subversion
John XXIII enthusiastically celebrates the “Prima Synodus Romana”:
“verum autem solacium… ex eo, quod Prima Synodus Romana felici est exitu peracta… documentum praebuerunt voluntatis ardorisque sacerdotalis et apostolici”
He depicts it as a triumph of zeal and as a sign of future Christian life in Rome “equal to the most illustrious ages,” linking this directly with the See of Peter and the Lateran.
Factually:
– The 1960 Roman Synod functioned as a testing ground for ecclesial “renewal.”
– It anticipated themes that would dominate Vatican II: liturgical simplification, pastoral adaptation, accent on participation, new style of governance.
Theologically:
– No reaffirmation of the immutable character of dogma against evolutionist tendencies.
– No warning against condemned modernist theses listed by St Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu such as:
– proposition 54: that dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy are merely stages of evolving religious consciousness;
– proposition 58: that truth changes with man.
Yet the whole allocution breathes precisely that historicist optimism: a new age, new structures, new “opportunities,” as if the Church must constantly refashion herself to the times, rather than demand that nations submit to Christ the King.
By calling the synod a “true solace” and connecting it seamlessly with the planned ecumenical council, John XXIII proclaims continuity where there is programmatic discontinuity. The council is presented as:
– a grand work requiring representatives from many nations;
– a means for better expressing “various needs” and “various aspects of doctrine and discipline”;
– a promotion of “growth of Christian life and apostolate.”
The language is deliberately elastic, pastoral, bureaucratic, intentionally free from clear dogmatic parameters. What is missing?
– Any insistence that the council is strictly bound by prior definitions, can only restate and apply them, and cannot propose religious liberty, ecumenism with false religions, or a redefinition of the Church, all of which had been explicitly condemned (Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI).
– Any echo of Pius IX’s condemnation of the thesis that the Church cannot define that she alone is the true religion (Syllabus, n.21), or that the State must be separated from the Church (n.55), or that the Roman Pontiff should reconcile with liberalism and modern civilization (n.80).
Thus, the allocution reveals: the council is conceived not as a fortress of immutable truth against error, but as an instrument of adaptation. This intention, made clear in later acts, is already veiled here in pious phrases.
Universalist Rhetoric without the Social Kingship of Christ
A focal passage concerns the new cardinals from Japan, the Philippines, and Tanganyika, with emphatic insistence on universality:
“Christus Iesus… sua cuique Nationi matura tempora praestituit… ad gloriam Dei, qui populos ad sanctimoniam vocat nullo habito discrimine linguae, generis, coloris”
English sense: Christ calls peoples to holiness without distinction of language, race, or color.
In itself, the supernatural call to all nations is Catholic. The Church is indeed *catholica*, not tribal. Missions in Africa and Asia are real fruits of pre-conciliar zeal.
The problem lies in the subtle shift of emphasis:
1. Universality is expressed in categories identical to Masonic and liberal humanitarian discourse: “no distinction of language, race, color.” What is omitted is decisive:
– no insistence that all nations are bound in conscience to recognize the authority of Christ the King and His Church;
– no recall of Pius XI’s doctrine that peace and order are impossible without the social reign of Christ: *“the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states refuse to recognize the reign of our Savior”* (Quas Primas).
2. Evangelization is rhetorically reduced to “bringing the good news” in the sense of a generalized message of salvation, without the sharp affirmation that all false religions and schisms are intrinsically deadly errors. Silence about exclusive salvific authority is already a concession to indifferentism condemned in the Syllabus (nn.15–18).
3. By making the expansion of the “College of Cardinals” the sacrament of universality, the allocution implicitly suggests that structural representation equals true catholicity. This is a political, not doctrinal, vision of universality – a hallmark of post‑1958 naturalistic ecclesiology.
Thus, while the vocabulary seems orthodox, the omissions and emphases reveal a new anthropology: man and nations as autonomous subjects to be gently accompanied, not commanded, by Christ’s Kingship.
Abuse of the Canon of the Most Holy Sacrifice: Liturgy Pressed into Propaganda
Particularly grave is the way the Canon of the Most Holy Sacrifice is instrumentalized:
“Diligenter vim perpendite horum quattuor verborum: pacificare, custodire, adunare, regere toto orbe terrarum”
He invites the cardinals to “carefully weigh” the four verbs by which the Canon prays for the Church: *pacificare, custodire, adunare, regere* – to pacify, guard, unite, rule.
Traditional doctrine:
– The Canon supplicates God to preserve His Church in unity of faith, in protection from error, in obedience to the legitimate hierarchy teaching the same doctrine always.
– Peace (*pax*) is the tranquillity of order rooted in the reign of Christ and the repudiation of heresy and impiety.
John XXIII, however, uses this sacred text for a pastoral-politic reorientation:
– “Pacify” is subtly aligned with international détente and vague concord among peoples, not first with doctrinal peace.
– “Unite” is read in terms that will open directly into ecumenism: union not by conversion of heretics and schismatics to the one true Church, but by dialogues and structural gestures.
– “Rule” is not expounded as the objective right of the Church to govern nations according to divine law (against the liberal thesis of State supremacy condemned in Syllabus nn.39–44), but as an interior, spiritualized leadership easily compatible with secular “religious freedom.”
In short, the Canon is invoked while hollowed out. This is a symptom of the greater liturgical revolution soon to follow, in which Catholic lex orandi would be systematically rewritten to support the new ideology of religious pluralism and anthropocentric worship.
Sentimental Pacifism and the Evasion of Divine Kingship
Later he contemplates “domestic and public vicissitudes,” “miseries,” “uncertainties” among nations, and laments that tensions grow the more people depart from Christ. On the surface, this seems sound. But the cure proposed is revealing:
“consilia inceptaque arcto foedere socianda, quae laetam concordemque pacem praestent”
English sense: “to harmoniously unite plans and initiatives that provide joyful and harmonious peace.”
Where is:
– the clear teaching that public order and legislation must subject themselves objectively to the law of Christ the King, as *Quas Primas* solemnly teaches?
– the condemnation of liberal religious liberty that dethrones Christ in civil life (Syllabus 55, 77–80)?
– the call to rulers to publicly honor Christ and defend the true Church, as Pius XI insists is their duty?
Instead we hear the ideological lexicon of post‑war humanitarianism: “peace,” “harmony,” “mutual understanding,” “social life,” devoid of the non‑negotiable dogma of the Kingship of Christ over laws, schools, and institutions. This is naturalistic pacifism cloaked in piety, precisely the “social modernism” pre‑conciliar popes identified as suicidal.
By detaching “peace” from doctrinal and political submission to Christ and His Church, John XXIII aligns with those errors that Pius IX and Pius X had unmistakably rejected. This is not a mere style change; it is a transvaluation of principles.
The College of Cardinals as Engine of Transformation
The climactic act is the elevation of new cardinals, including:
– Peter Tatsuo Doi (Tokyo),
– Joseph Lefebvre (Bourges),
– Bernard Jan Alfrink (Utrecht),
– Rufino Santos (Manila),
– Laurean Rugambwa (Rutabo),
– Antonio Bacci,
– and three more “in pectore.”
John XXIII ties this expansion to the ecumenical council and explicitly to the advantage that cardinals from many nations can bring:
“Concilium Oecumenicum… si a viris suppeditetur, qui amplissima auctoritate polleant atque ad varias Nationes pertineant… clarius innotescant diversae locorum necessitates…”
English sense: the council, supported by men of great authority from various nations, will better manifest local needs and clarify doctrine and discipline.
We must distinguish:
– Legitimate missionary growth, which indeed calls for pastors from all nations, provided they guard the same faith and rites.
– The ideological use of geographic diversification to embed heterogenous theological tendencies and create a parliamentary body able to pressure, dilute, or overturn the doctrinal clarity of the center.
The chosen names themselves (for example, Alfrink) later emerge as prominent actors in the conciliar and post‑conciliar revolution: promoting collegiality against papal primacy (in its true sense), neo-liturgical experiments, and doctrinal softening. This is fully consistent with the allocution’s underlying thesis: that the “College” should reflect and channel the “various needs” and “opinions” of peoples. This is the democratization of the Church’s governance, condemned in substance by tradition:
– The Church is a *societas perfecta* with authority descending from Christ through Peter and the bishops, not from a geographical parliament of shifting mentalities.
– The Roman Pontiff and ecumenical councils are strictly bound to guard, not innovate, the deposit of faith (cf. Vatican I, *Pastor Aeternus*).
Thus, the rhetorical exaltation of the cardinals points to a functional transformation of their role: from witnesses and defenders of immutable doctrine to agents and mediators of historical change.
Linguistic Symptoms: Bureaucratic Piety and Optimistic Vagueness
The theological bankruptcy of the allocution is mirrored in its style:
1. Inflated curial formality:
– Endless ceremonial formulas praising the “amplissimi viri,” “lectissimi praesules,” “sollemnis coetus,” and so on.
– This solemnity is used to sanctify internal political moves, giving revolutionary intentions the appearance of continuity.
2. Optimistic and irenic tone:
– References to “suavem animi delectationem,” “serena fiducia,” “pace quadam sancta et placidissima.”
– Such rhetoric stands in sharp tension with the grave language of Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, and Pius XI, who describe liberalism, naturalism, and secret societies as mortally dangerous plagues (see Syllabus; encyclicals against Freemasonry; Pascendi).
3. Calculated omissions:
– No mention of Modernism by name.
– No warning against condemned philosophical errors.
– No defense of the Index, the Holy Office, or anti-modernist oath.
– No affirmation that all non-Catholic religions are false and lead to perdition, contrary to Syllabus 16 and 17.
The combination of mellifluous language with doctrinal minimalism is not accidental. It is a strategic rhetoric of anesthetization, preparing clergy and faithful to accept doctrinal novelties as smooth “updates” rather than ruptures.
Systemic Fruit of the Conciliar Sect: This Allocution as Foundational Symptom
Seen in retrospect — but already objectively analyzable from the text itself — this allocution displays the constitutive marks of the post‑1958 conciliar sect:
– Anthropocentric optimism: confidence in “future ages” grounded not on militant defense of dogma, but on structural reforms, expanded representation, and global dialogue.
– Pastoralism without dogmatic edge: insistence on consolation, solidarity, and peace, with a parallel refusal to restate in hard terms the exclusive claims of the Catholic Church.
– Ecclesial democratization: elevation of national and cultural variety as a quasi-source of doctrinal and disciplinary development.
– Instrumentalization of liturgy and saints: liturgical texts and confessors like Stepinac are reduced to emblematic functions in a narrative legitimizing the same apparatus that will later betray their faith.
All of this stands in direct conflict with the integral pre‑1958 Magisterium:
– Pius IX explicitly condemns religious indifferentism, State-neutrality, and reconciliation with liberalism.
– St Pius X brands Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies” and demands its extirpation, not its integration.
– Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that social peace depends entirely on the public reign of Christ the King, and denounces laicism and secular democracy as rebellion against divine order.
When a claimant to the papacy speaks and acts in a manner that systematically relativizes, empties, or neutralizes these doctrines, the conclusion is not optional opinion but a necessary theological judgment: such a man does not hold — and cannot hold — the authority whose first duty is to guard that deposit inviolate.
This allocution is, therefore, not a harmless historical speech, but a pivot: the self-validation of an anti‑Catholic program under the appearance of continuity. It belongs, by its content and omissions, to the framework of the conciliar usurpation, of which the later council and subsequent usurpers are merely the unfolding.
Source:
Consistorium Secretum – Allocutio in consueta aula Palatii Apostolici Vaticani (die 30 mensis Martii, A.D. MCMLX) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025