In this allocution of 7 November 1961, John XXIII addresses the second plenary session of the Central Commission preparing Vatican II, praising the work of the preparatory bodies, exalting worldwide expectations for the coming council, invoking peace, human dignity, collaboration, and the “universal” hopes fixed upon this future assembly. He frames the council as a response to contemporary aspirations, emphasizes optimism about humanity’s moral and religious openness, and calls for trust in mutual understanding, justice, and respect for the human person redeemed by Christ.
This apparently pious enthusiasm is, in reality, the programmatic manifesto of a new naturalistic, anthropocentric religion that instrumentalizes the Church to serve the cult of man and prepares the juridical and doctrinal suicide of the visible structures now occupied by the conciliar sect.
Allocution as Manifesto of the Neo-Church: Enthroning Man, Silencing the Kingship of Christ
Programmed Optimism against Catholic Realism
From the first lines John XXIII transforms a solemn ecclesial context into a self-congratulatory celebration of human planning and institutional process. He hails the preparatory commissions, the “experts,” the technical labors, the procedural refinements. The supernatural note—when present at all—is thin, generic, and subordinated to an earthly optimism.
He declares that the work undertaken gives “good hope” of “abundant fruits very useful to the life of the Church,” and that the very expectation of what the commissions will do is a source of confidence. He repeatedly stresses:
“We have every reason to trust that this difficult work will succeed happily, for you are Church administrators, ecclesiastical men, most knowledgeable about the things our times demand.”
This is already a direct inversion of Catholic order:
– Instead of beginning from the immutable deposit of faith, he begins from “what our times demand.”
– Instead of recalling that pastors are strictly bound to transmit what they have received (cf. Vatican I, *Dei Filius*; Trent; the constant Magisterium), he flatters the assembly as competent managers capable of redesigning ecclesial life.
– Instead of warning against the errors solemnly condemned less than a century earlier in the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX or against Modernism anathematized by St. Pius X in *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili*, he cultivates a climate of institutional self-esteem.
Integral Catholic doctrine requires that councils be convened first and above all to define and defend dogma against prevailing heresies, to repress errors, to correct morals, to restore discipline, to proclaim the reign of Christ the King over individuals and nations (cf. Pius XI, *Quas Primas*). Here we see none of this. The allocution presents the coming council fundamentally as an administrative, diplomatic, pedagogical event oriented to “our times,” human expectations, and worldly reassurance.
Already at this level, the text manifests a rupture with the pre-1958 Magisterium: the center of gravity shifts from God’s unchanging truth to human “needs” and “hopes,” from doctrinal clarity to pastoral experimentation.
Naturalistic Humanism: The Eclipse of the Supernatural Order
One of the most revealing passages is John XXIII’s insistence that the council should promote:
“confidence among men, the zeal for mutual and concordant action, respect for the human person, whom Christ has redeemed, and the establishment of peace for the benefit of all mortals.”
On the surface, each phrase can be read in a Catholic sense; yet taken as a program, and given what is scandalously omitted, this is precisely the rhetoric of naturalistic humanitarianism condemned by the true Magisterium:
– He speaks of “respect for the human person” in isolation from the duty of all men and nations to submit to the law of Christ and His Church. Pius XI teaches that peace and social order are possible only where Christ is acknowledged as King not merely of hearts, but of societies and legislations; Christ’s kingship demands that public authority conform civil law to divine and natural law. John XXIII replaces this with generic “human person” language in perfect resonance with the liberal ideology explicitly rejected in the Syllabus (e.g. condemned propositions 3, 39, 77-80).
– He mentions “peace” repeatedly, but without defining peace as the fruit of submission to Christ, orthodoxy of faith, and moral rectitude; instead, peace is treated as a universal good achievable by mutual understanding, institutional dialogue, and respect for human rights—precisely the horizontal pseudo-gospel already unmasked by Pius IX and Leo XIII as the program of Freemasonry and liberal naturalism.
The silence here is clamorous:
– No mention of the necessity of the state of grace.
– No mention of the Four Last Things.
– No call to repentance for public apostasy, for secularizing legislation, for the rejection of the social Kingship of Christ.
– No explicit reaffirmation that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation, as taught unchanged by the Fathers, by the Councils of Florence and Trent, and by innumerable Popes.
– No reference to the grave condemnations of religious indifferentism and liberty of cult (Syllabus 15-18, 77-80).
– No reminder that true peace is impossible in rebellion against God, and that revolt against Christ the King is the root of modern calamities (Pius XI, *Quas Primas*).
Instead, John XXIII urges those who govern nations to safeguard “primary liberties” and “inviolable goods of highest value of each people and each person,” adopting exactly the vocabulary of modern liberalism, without any doctrinal filtration. He uses this rhetoric as the horizon within which the council should situate itself.
This is not accidental. It is the program: the council as the Church’s “reconciliation” with “modern civilization” — precisely the proposition 80 of the Syllabus that “the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself with progress, liberalism and modern civilization,” a thesis solemnly condemned by Pius IX, and here effectively embraced in substance.
Linguistic Symptoms of Apostasy: From Dogma to Atmosphere
The language of the allocution is itself a decisive doctrinal indicator. A few traits stand out:
1. Flattery of “experts” and bureaucratic structures:
– The text extols “Commissiones et Secretariatus,” “auxiliary councils,” technical and organizational prowess. Ecclesial authority is re-described as process-management. This bureaucratic exaltation is foreign to the paternal, dogmatically centered tone of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII, who always subordinated structures to doctrinal fidelity.
2. Vacuous optimism:
– Instead of sober Catholic discernment of the “signs of the times” (in the Patristic and Thomistic sense: the growth of apostasy, moral dissolution, and revolutionary forces), John XXIII saturates his speech with vague “hope,” “joy,” “universal expectation,” “encouragement,” without any serious eschatological or ascetical dimension. This optimism stands in open conflict with the perennial teaching that the Church on earth is *Ecclesia militans* (Church militant), engaged in perpetual warfare against error, heresy, and the world’s prince.
3. Horizontal vocabulary:
– “Mutual and concordant action,” “pacific and honest competitions,” “civilization,” “economic and political questions,” “liberal arts,” are listed as focal preoccupations of modern man; the allocution rejoices that the Church’s documents and actions draw interest even from those “who appear alien” to them. But there is no insistence that such interest must lead to conversion, to abjuration of errors, to submission to the only true Church. The entire tone suggests dialogue, cultural presence, influence—precisely the new cult of consensus and recognition that subverts the missionary mandate “teach all nations” by replacing it with “be appreciated by all nations.”
4. Manipulative invocation of the Holy Spirit:
– Near the end he calls on the *Spiritus Paraclitus* to guide the work. This is not presented as the divine guarantee that the council will defend the deposit against modern errors, but as a vague invocation over a process explicitly oriented toward accommodating “our times.” It becomes a liturgical varnish over a humanist agenda.
The use of this vocabulary is not accidental decoration; it signals the methodological overthrow of the Catholic lex orandi–lex credendi (law of prayer–law of belief) and prefigures the very inversion that will later devastate the liturgy and catechesis: the language of man displacing the language of God, atmosphere replacing anathema, consensus replacing confession.
Theological Betrayal: Omissions that Condemn
According to integral Catholic theology, omissions in a programmatic ecclesial speech are not neutral; they reveal the operative principles. In this allocution, several omissions are decisive.
1. Total absence of doctrinal combat:
– In 1961, the errors condemned by *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi* (Modernism), the Syllabus (liberalism and indifferentism), and by Pius XI and Pius XII (laicism, communism, neo-pagan statism, pseudo-ecumenism) were rampant in theology faculties, episcopates, and political life.
– Yet John XXIII says nothing about the need to extirpate these errors. Instead of summoning the bishops to wield the sword of doctrine, he congratulates them as “most knowledgeable about the things our times demand.”
– This directly opposes St. Pius X, who condemned precisely the illusion that “modern needs” can dictate theology and who imposed the anti-modernist oath to guard against that deceit.
2. No affirmation of the exclusive truth of the Catholic Church:
– He notes with satisfaction that “separated brethren” and even many who do not bear the sign of Christ are attentively, respectfully, expectantly turned toward the council.
– Nowhere does he state that their “separation” is objectively a state of schism or heresy; nowhere is there a call to their conversion to the one true fold under the one true shepherd.
– The rhetoric of appreciation and inclusion—unaccompanied by a missionary call to abjure errors—directly contradicts the doctrine reiterated by Pius IX and Leo XIII that there is no parity between the Church and sects; religious indifferentism is condemned (Syllabus 15-18), and the Church has the right and duty to assert her unique divine authority (Syllabus 21).
3. Substitution of social pacification for the Kingship of Christ:
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that the fundamental cause of modern ruin is the rejection of the reign of Christ in public life, and that the remedy is the solemn, juridical acknowledgment of His Kingship by individuals and states, legislations, and institutions.
– John XXIII, however, frames the council as a means to support “true and fruitful peace” by fostering confidence, cooperation, and respect for persons and rights, with no demand that states submit to the law of Christ or recognize the Church’s authority. This is the practical abolition of *Quas Primas* and acceptance of the very laicist separation condemned in Syllabus 55.
4. Silence on the sacrificial and militant nature of the Church:
– A truly Catholic allocution would place at the center the Most Holy Sacrifice, penance, Marian intercession (in the genuine pre-conciliar sense), and the unwavering proclamation of dogma.
– Here, the Church is portrayed rather as a benevolent moral authority that inspires peace, culture, dialogue—a kind of spiritualized United Nations.
– The Church constructed in this speech is not the *societas perfecta* (perfect society) endowed with full rights from Christ (Syllabus 19), but an actor among others in a pluralistic world, seeking mutual understanding.
These omissions are not mere rhetorical lapses; they map exactly onto the agenda that will soon be implemented by the conciliar sect: doctrinal dilution, ecumenical relativism, religious liberty, liturgical desacralization, and the enthronement of man in the place of God.
Symptomatic of the Conciliar Revolution: From Preparation to Self-Dissolution
From the perspective of the unchanging Catholic doctrine prior to 1958, this allocution is a clinical symptom of systemic apostasy. Several aspects expose its function within the conciliar revolution:
1. The cult of “universal expectation”:
– John XXIII rejoices that the council is awaited not only by Catholics, but by those separated from the Church and even by non-believers.
– Traditionally, such “expectation” from heretics, schismatics, and unbelievers would be interpreted with maximum caution: either as hope for their conversion or as a sign of their intention to pressure the Church into concessions. The proper Catholic response would be: the council will define truth and condemn your errors; if you desire truth, rejoice; if you desire compromise, you will be disappointed.
– Here, by contrast, their expectation is presented as something that should move Catholics to tremulous joy. This equates “universal expectation” with a quasi-charismatic confirmation of the council’s project—as if the *consensus saeculi* (approval of the world) were a sign of the Spirit of God, when Our Lord explicitly teaches that the world hates those who belong to Him.
2. Reduction of councils to pastoral-technocratic enterprises:
– The allocution emphasizes technical preparations, auxiliary councils, ordering of materials, procedural questions, and “fruitful outcomes” in terms of communication and pastoral impact.
– Ecumenical councils in Catholic understanding are primarily dogmatic organs: they solemnly define revealed truths and anathematize errors. When a supposed “pope” inaugurates the preparations by practically renouncing the corrective and condemnatory function, he is announcing a different entity: an assembly designed not to defend the deposit, but to adjust the Church to the world.
3. Concord with condemned principles:
– The underlying principles harmonize frighteningly with specific condemned theses of the Syllabus:
– The exaltation of human reason and autonomy in public order (1–5, 56–60).
– The idea that the Church should reconcile herself with modern liberal civilization (80).
– The separation of Church and State and religious pluralism as compatible with Catholicism (55, 77–79).
– While the allocution does not state these propositions explicitly, it constructs a framework in which they are presupposed and operational. The rhetorical choice to avoid reaffirming the contrary Catholic theses is itself a strategic alignment with liberalism.
4. The first act of the paramasonic “Church of the New Advent”:
– Taken historically, this text is one of the founding speeches of what will become the conciliar sect, the “Church of the New Advent,” the paramasonic neo-structure that usurps Catholic forms to preach a new religion: man at the center, conscience sovereign, nations equal, cult reduced to communal celebration, truth relativized under “pastoral” concerns.
– The allocution exhibits the classic marks: sentimental optimism, anthropocentric vocabulary, praise of pluralistic attention, erasure of condemnations, and misappropriation of the Holy Spirit as warrant for innovation.
Against Democratization and Lay Self-Judgment: True Authority vs. Conciliar Theater
It is important to expose a subtle danger: while John XXIII’s speech flatters hierarchy and “experts,” the broader conciliar revolution will simultaneously feed a democratizing impulse in which lay opinion, media, and worldly powers exert de facto magisterium. One must reject both extremes:
– On one side, the pseudo-hierarchical apparatus of the conciliar sect—“popes,” “cardinals,” “bishops,” “priests” ordained in doubtful or invalid rites after 1968—has no authority, because public adhesion to modernist heresies and to a new religion deprives one *ipso facto* of jurisdiction and membership in the Church (*cum ex Apostolatus officio* of Paul IV; Canon 188.4 of 1917 Code; the principles clarified by St. Robert Bellarmine and others: a manifest heretic cannot be pope nor hold office in the visible Church).
– On the other side, laicist and anticlerical currents exploit the conciliar disaster to arrogate to the “people” the right to redefine doctrine, morality, liturgy. This is equally condemned by Catholic tradition, which teaches that authority is divine in origin and resides in the true hierarchy, not in the masses.
Therefore, from the perspective of integral Catholic faith, one must:
– Denounce the structures occupying Rome as a parallel organization, a neo-church lacking legitimate authority, precisely because of their public adhesion to modernist errors pre-condemned by the true Magisterium.
– Reject any appeal to “democracy” in the Church, whether in the form of media pressures, synodal theatrics, or theological lobbies. The Church is a monarchy under Christ the King, exercised on earth by His legitimate Vicar and the bishops in union with him — a line objectively interrupted when the usurpers beginning with John XXIII embraced condemned doctrines.
– Recognize that all authentic authority belongs now only to those bishops and priests who:
– hold the Catholic faith in its integral pre-1958 form;
– possess valid orders according to the traditional Roman rite or equivalent;
– refuse communion with the modernist pseudo-hierarchy.
John XXIII’s allocution, by preparing a council that will theatrically invoke the People of God while submitting in practice to the spirit of the world, becomes a template for both the false authoritarianism of the conciliar apparatus and the false democratism that uses that apparatus to dissolve dogma.
True Catholic Response: Reaffirmation of the Immutable Magisterium
Against the theological and spiritual bankruptcy manifested in this allocution, the only Catholic response is an unambiguous return to the perennial doctrine:
– *Lex Christiana est immutabilis* (the law of Christ is immutable). No council, no commission, no “aggiornamento” can revise the deposit of faith.
– *Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus* (outside the Church there is no salvation) remains an absolute truth, understood as always in the Church: all salvation comes from Christ through the Catholic Church; false religions are not parallel paths but obstacles that must be abandoned.
– The State, as Pius IX and Pius XI insist, cannot lawfully be neutral in matters of religion. It is bound in conscience to publicly recognize the Catholic religion as the only true one, to protect the Church, and to conform legislation to divine law. Any doctrine of religious freedom that places error on a juridical parity with truth contradicts this.
– The Holy Ghost is promised to the Church not to teach novelties, but to preserve from error what has been once delivered. Any invocation of the Spirit to justify innovations previously condemned by legitimate Popes and councils is blasphemous.
This allocution of John XXIII must therefore be read not as a legitimate papal exhortation, but as an inaugural speech of an antichristic project: to melt down the visible bastions of the Church and recast them into a humanitarian, ecumenical, naturalistic structure, the “neo-church” that occupies Rome while waging war—under the mask of “renewal”—against the very faith entrusted to Peter.
A Catholic of integral faith, seeing here the deliberate marginalization of dogma, the flattery of secular sensibilities, and the suppression of the Kingship of Christ, has only one honest conclusion: the allocution is a milestone on the road of systemic apostasy, and it must be rejected together with the conciliar and post-conciliar edifice built upon its principles. The duty now is to cleave to the uninterrupted Magisterium prior to this revolution, to the true Sacrifice, to the true sacraments, and to those confessors and pastors who, without compromise, maintain what all the true Popes taught always, everywhere, and by all.
Source:
Allocutio habita in secunda plenaria Sessione Commissionis Centralis Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano II apparando: Beatissimi Patris spes et vota (die 7 m. Novembris, A.D. MCMLXI) (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025