In this short address of 12 May 1962, antipope John XXIII congratulates the Central Commission preparing Vatican II, praises their labors, expresses tranquil confidence and hope that the coming council—described with the now-familiar image of a “new Pentecost”—will bring abundant fruits for the Church and all humanity, warns discreetly against trusting too much in earthly institutions, and invokes St Paul as a model for their work in view of the “Kingdom of God,” concluding with his “apostolic blessing.” This apparently devout and benign speech is in reality a distilled manifesto of conciliar naturalism, sentimental optimism, and institutionalized ambiguity, preparing the way for the systematic dismantling of the visible reign of Christ the King and the subversion of the Catholic Church into the conciliar sect.

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Programmatic Optimism in Service of the Conciliar Revolution

Uncritical Self-Congratulation as Preludium to Apostasy

Already in the opening lines, John XXIII frames the entire enterprise with a tone of serene self-satisfaction and worldly optimism:

“With not inconsiderable consolation of soul we see the efforts for the worthy preparation [of the Council] becoming more eager, and the common expectation more vigilant.”

No word of trembling before divine judgment, no fear of scandal or doctrinal confusion, no grave insistence on defending the flock against the modernist errors solemnly condemned by St Pius X in Pascendi and Lamentabili sane exitu. Instead, we see institutional complacency.

Measured by the unchanging Catholic standard (pre-1958):

– The First Vatican Council (Pastor Aeternus, 1870) defined the duty of the Roman Pontiff to guard the deposit, not invent a “new Pentecost” or euphoric aggiornamento. The allocution’s atmosphere of horizontal enthusiasm undermines the sobriety with which the Church traditionally approached councils: as extraordinary, dangerous remedies for grave evils, not as festivals of optimism.
– St Pius X speaks of Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” (Pascendi), demanding vigilance, suspicion of novelty, strict doctrinal clarity. John XXIII, by contrast, serenely praises the very preparatory labors that would produce the destructive schemas and pseudo-pastoral novelties of Vatican II. This is not neutral; it is complicity.

The allocution manifests a new principle: the works of the conciliar apparatus are, a priori, good and blessed. No mention of the encyclicals and condemnations that had just unmasked the same tendencies (historicist exegesis, democratization of magisterium, evolution of dogma) that Vatican II would canonize in pastoral form.

The contrast with genuine Catholic language is stark. Pius XI in Quas Primas grounds all hope for peace and social order exclusively in the public, juridical kingship of Christ: “Peace will not be given as long as individuals and states refuse to submit to the rule of our Savior.” Here, in 1962, the supposed “pope” prepares a council that will enthrone religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenism, and the cult of man—and he dares to frame this path as secure, peaceful, and Spirit-led.

“New Pentecost” Rhetoric: Pious Cover for Doctrinal Subversion

A key line:

“The Ecumenical Council is often felicitously named as it were a new Pentecost of heavenly light and grace, which will procure a wealth of saving fruits for the Catholic Church and also for the whole human race.”

This formula is the ideological detonator of the conciliar revolution.

Measured by integral Catholic doctrine:

– The unique Pentecost is a completed, foundational event that established the Church’s indefectible possession of the deposit of faith. The dogma that revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle is reiterated by Vatican I and consistently by the pre-conciliar Magisterium. To call a future, humanly prepared assembly “a new Pentecost” blurs the line between the definitive apostolic founding and a mutable historical event.
– Under this poetic veneer lies the modernist thesis condemned in Lamentabili 21–22: that revelation and dogma develop as expressions of the community’s evolving consciousness. The allocution’s language harmonizes with the idea that the Council will inaugurate a quasi-new age of the Spirit, functionally loosening the authority of prior definitions in favor of a “pastoral” aggiornamento.

What is omitted is even more damning:

– No mention that any “new outpouring” must perfectly and strictly conform to the solemn condemnations of liberalism, rationalism, indifferentism, and false religious liberty set forth by Gregory XVI (Mirari Vos), Pius IX (Quanta Cura and the Syllabus), Leo XIII, St Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII.
– No warning that the Holy Ghost cannot contradict Himself; therefore any proposal touching dogma, liturgy, or discipline must be measured rigorously by pre-existing magisterial teaching. Instead, the Council is treated as self-authenticating effusion of grace.

The rhetoric of “new Pentecost” became the alibi for every subsequent betrayal: the new ecclesiology, the cult of religious liberty, the abolition of the confessional state, the demolition of the Most Holy Sacrifice into a protestantized assembly-rite, the systematic dilution of catechesis, the ecumenical veneration of false religions. This allocution is one of the programmatic moments where such a trajectory is wrapped in devotional language to anesthetize resistance.

Ambiguous Talk of the “Kingdom of God” Without the Rights of Christ the King

John XXIII alludes to the “Regnum Dei” and adopts a Pauline veneer:

“We, for the Kingdom of God, are gathered here together for this one purpose; wherefore it is altogether necessary that the example of each one of us shine, while we devote ourselves to furthering this most holy cause for the good of the entire human family.”

The key elements:

– Vague invocation of “Kingdom of God” and “good of the entire human family.”
– No explicit affirmation that this Kingdom is concretely the Catholic Church, a perfect, visible society with exclusive claims, as taught by Pius XII in Mystici Corporis.
– No reiteration that the only true good of the human family depends on all nations submitting to the social reign of Christ the King, as taught in Quas Primas and condemned in the Syllabus errors on religious indifferentism and separation of Church and State.

Instead, the phraseology subtly shifts:

– From the precise: *Regnum Christi in Ecclesia catholica et in societate* (The reign of Christ in the Catholic Church and in society)
– To the amorphous: “Kingdom of God” + “good of the human family” = perfect framework for the later conciliar cult of “human dignity,” dialogue, and Masonic universal fraternity.

The silence is the accusation:

– He does not proclaim that false religions are instruments of damnation.
– He does not recall that the State sinfully refuses Christ’s social kingship when it legalizes errors or treats truth and falsehood equally.
– He does not invoke the Syllabus’s rejection of the liberal thesis that “the State should be separated from the Church” (Proposition 55) or that all forms of worship may be freely exercised without harm (Proposition 79).

Instead, he blesses a process that would culminate in Dignitatis Humanae, the charter of conciliar religious liberty—diametrically opposed to the integral teaching of Pius IX and Leo XIII. The allocution’s abstract language is not accidental; it is the idiom of transition from Catholic clarity to conciliar equivocation.

Selective Warning Against Trust in Temporal Powers: Half-Truth in Service of Error

One of the few seemingly “strong” passages:

“Let us beware lest we place too great hope in the help and favor which earthly institutions can promise us; all these institutions… look principally to the goods of the body and to the progress of economic matters.”

On the surface, this echoes traditional teaching: do not trust princes (Ps 145:2–3). But read carefully:

– He criticizes overreliance on temporal structures, yet never denounces the very concrete anti-Christian regimes (secular democracies, communist states, Masonic republics) or the liberal system condemned by his predecessors.
– He does not call states back to recognize the supremacy of divine and ecclesiastical law, nor to submit to Christ’s social kingship, which is the only Catholic solution.
– He does not cite the solemn condemnations of secret societies and Masonic machinations (e.g. Pius IX, Leo XIII Humanum Genus), even though those very societies were orchestrating the infiltration of the Church and the conciliar revolution—as pre-1958 papal documents explicitly diagnose.

Thus, an orthodox-sounding admonition is emptied of its Catholic content and pressed into a sentimental spirituality detached from concrete doctrinal and political obligations. This is the typical conciliar method: say something partly true, but strip it of its binding implications and ignore the magisterial framework that would give it teeth.

Proceduralism and Bureaucratic Serenity: The Spirit of a Paramasonic Structure

A telling feature of the allocution is the bureaucratic calm with which John XXIII describes the enormous scope of the preparatory work:

– He enumerates topics: ecclesiology, marriage, family, ecclesiastical discipline, diocesan administration, catechetical formation.
– He rejoices in the multiplicity and complexity of the agenda.
– He notes confidently that such variety simply requires “more elaborate” organization and that he enjoys “peace and tranquility” about it.

The missing elements:

– No dread of introducing confusion into faith and morals by opening all these settled questions to “free discussion.”
– No explicit submission of all deliberations to the prior doctrinal condemnations of errors that touch precisely these fields (modernist exegesis, democratization of the Church, reduction of marriage, liturgical experimentation, etc.).
– No awareness that proliferating “pastoral” debates on doctrinally defined matters provides the perfect vehicle for introducing heterodox tendencies under a pragmatic guise.

St Pius X, in Pascendi, unmasks modernists as men who want to remake the Church’s institutions, worship, and discipline to reflect their immanentist doctrine. The procedural serenity of John XXIII, presiding over the vast apparatus that would produce Vatican II, fits that pattern. It reflects the mentality of a paramasonic managerial body: confident in process, allergic to anathemas, fascinated with structures and commissions.

Even more symptomatic is his plan:

“We also turn Our care to establish more broadly an office for instructing journalists, so that public opinion may be suitably formed on so great a matter.”

Instead of guarding the deposit, he organizes information management. This anticipates the media-driven, propagandistic manipulation that accompanied Vatican II and its aftermath, where “public opinion” was deliberately shaped to accept rupture under the slogan of “renewal.” It is the language not of Peter confirming the brethren in the faith (Luke 22:32), but of a modern CEO centralizing communications to sell a new product.

Abuse of Pauline Imagery: Legitimizing a Counterfeit Apostolate

John XXIII clothes the conciliar machinery in apostolic garb, invoking Acts 28:

“In this as it were center of the Catholic Church, at the sacred memories of Peter, the same ministry, which was proper to Peter and Paul, is now fulfilled and continues through us.”

This is an audacious theological claim, and under scrutiny it collapses:

– Peter and Paul preached Christ crucified, intolerant of idols, condemning false religions, commanding conversion and baptism as necessary for salvation.
– The same line of Roman Pontiffs up to Pius XII guarded exclusivist, anti-liberal doctrine, condemning the very errors that Vatican II would “pastorally” rehabilitate.

For John XXIII to say that “the same ministry” continues “through us” while he inaugurates the very council that would deny in practice the Syllabus of Errors, the social kingship of Christ, the unique salvific status of the Catholic Church, and the traditional liturgy as exclusive expression of the Roman rite, is to attempt baptism of a usurping program with apostolic language.

The deeper blasphemous suggestion: as Paul in Rome “received all who came to him… preaching the kingdom of God… with all confidence, without prohibition,” so Vatican II’s program of “opening” to all religions, ideologies, and errors is presented as continuity. In reality, this “without prohibition” becomes the conciliar refusal to condemn, to excommunicate, to anathematize. It reverses the apostolic pattern, where the Church’s openness was inseparably linked to dogmatic intolerance of error.

Silence on Modernism and the Condemned Errors: Proof of Doctrinal Betrayal

Most revealing of all is what this allocution does not say.

In 1962:

– The condemnations of rationalism, liberalism, indifferentism, socialism, and religious liberty in the Syllabus (1864) are fully in force.
– The solemn anti-modernist teaching of St Pius X (Pascendi, Lamentabili), and the Oath against Modernism (1910), are binding.
– Pius XI’s Quas Primas, Mortalium Animos (condemning false ecumenism), Pius XII’s Humani Generis against nouvelle théologie innovations, are recent and explicit.

Yet John XXIII:

– Never invokes these doctrinal ramparts as the non-negotiable framework of the Council.
– Never warns the Central Commission that any accommodation to liberal doctrines or ecumenical relativism would be treason.
– Never calls modernism by name, never reminds the bishops of their sworn obligation under the Anti-Modernist Oath.

Such systematic silence in such a programmatic setting is not an oversight; it is policy. Qui tacet consentire videtur (he who is silent is seen to consent). The conciliar sect’s leadership chose to suffocate the living voice of the pre-1958 Magisterium under a flood of pastoral verbiage. This allocution is an early, clear instance of that suffocation.

From Catholic Council to Conciliar Sect: This Allocution as Symptom

When evaluated in light of what followed—Vatican II’s documents, the Novus Ordo construct, the ecumenical cult of man, the systematic destruction of seminaries, religious life, catechesis, and the Most Holy Sacrifice—this allocution appears not as innocuous preparation but as a spiritual symptom:

– The calm, conflict-averse tone betrays a refusal to wield the keys of binding and loosing in defense of truth.
– The exaltation of a “new Pentecost” signals openness to experiential, historicist, evolving conceptions of doctrine.
– The reduction of the Church’s mission to the “good of the human family” prefigures the humanistic, horizontal religion of the conciliar sect, condemned in principle by Pius IX and St Pius X.
– The plan to manage journalists and shape “public opinion” reveals a technocratic, propagandistic mindset foreign to the supernatural simplicity of the true Church.

Measured against the constant pre-1958 doctrine, the theology implicit in this allocution is bankrupt. It no longer breathes the uncompromising supernaturalism of the Fathers and the true Popes; it moves in the atmosphere of post-Enlightenment humanitarianism, carefully sprinkled with Scripture to mask its departure from the faith.

In continuity with the Syllabus of Errors, Quas Primas, Pascendi, and Lamentabili, one must say:

– A leadership that prepares, blesses, and executes such a conciliar program, and that speaks this way about it, cannot be exercising the office of Peter according to Christ’s institution.
– A so-called “council” that arises from this mentality and produces texts contradicting prior magisterial teaching in spirit and in letter belongs not to the spotless Bride of Christ, but to the conciliar sect, a paramasonic structure occupying the visible organs once Catholic.

Thus this allocution, far from being a pious curiosity, is a charged piece of evidence: it displays the mindset of the usurping hierarchy on the eve of the great revolt; it shows the deliberate eclipse of doctrinal militancy by irenic rhetoric; it preaches an empty “Kingdom” compatible with liberalism and religious relativism; it sacralizes process, optimism, and media-management while refusing to reaffirm the concrete anathemas of the true Magisterium. Its theological and spiritual content stands condemned by the very pre-1958 papal magisterium it dares to ignore.

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Source:
Allocutio habita post exactos labores Sessionis sextae Commissionis Centralis Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano secundo apparando (die 12 m. Maii, A. D. MCMLXII)   (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025