The allocution of John XXIII to the superiors and members of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) on 25 September 1961 praises the historic fidelity of the Order to the Apostolic See, extols their title as “Order of Preachers,” and urges them to unite “old and new” in responding to the “needs of the times,” adapting studies, apostolate, missions, and publishing to contemporary circumstances while remaining, in his terms, faithful collaborators of the Roman See and instruments for spreading the Gospel.

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In reality, this seemingly pious exhortation is a paradigmatic programmatic text of the conciliar revolution: a rhetorical harnessing of a venerable Order into the service of the nascent neo-church, under a pseudo-traditional veneer, to instrumentalize their name, history, and preaching charism for Modernist aggiornamento.

John XXIII’s Flattery of the Dominicans as a Tool of the Conciliar Revolution

From Apostolic Mandate to Conciliar Servitude: The Factual Inversion

At the factual level, the allocution appears harmless: historical references to Honorius III, to the early chapters of the Order at Bologna, to voluntary poverty and preaching, to the Dominican attachment to the Roman See. John XXIII (the first usurper in the post-1958 line) rehearses venerable formulas:

“Your particular note consists in adhering to the Holy Roman Church and serving the Supreme Pontiff as if Peter himself.”

He then welds this authentic medieval identity onto his own person and program, inviting the Dominicans to see in him the natural heir and center of their fidelity. Here lies the decisive falsification.

– Historically and doctrinally, the Dominican charism rests upon:
– the defense of Catholic dogma with uncompromising clarity,
– the refutation of heresy,
– strict submission to the perennial Magisterium.
– The allocution quietly replaces this with:
– personalist attachment to the reigning occupant,
– openness to “new tasks and counsels” adapted to “new circumstances,”
– an elastic concept of mission, keyed to the undefined “needs of our age.”

The usurper appropriates Honorius III’s mandate (“to preach Christ to all nations in voluntary poverty”) and reinterprets it through the conciliar optic of institutional aggiornamento. The implication is that fidelity to the Dominican heritage consists precisely in allowing their structures, formation, and preaching to be reshaped to fit the coming Vatican II ethos.

This is not a mere detail: it is the mutation of obedience from adherence to *objective* Catholic doctrine into adhesion to a *subjective* conciliar project. To ground this:

– The pre-1958 Magisterium relentlessly condemns any attempt to subject the Church’s mission and doctrine to the “spirit of the age”:
– Pius IX, in the *Syllabus Errorum*, rejects the propositions that the Church must reconcile herself with “progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (error 80).
– St. Pius X, in *Lamentabili sane exitu* and *Pascendi*, denounces as Modernist the thesis that dogma and Church structures evolve according to historical needs and consciousness.
– Yet the allocution’s central praise is precisely the supposed capacity of the Order to “respond to new circumstances” by inserting “new offices and counsels” into the existing heritage, in a way that prefigures the conciliar hermeneutic of development.

In other words: the text uses the Dominican past to legitimize the future conciliar betrayal.

Linguistic Cosmetics: Pious Latin in Service of Subversion

The rhetoric is deliberately traditional in form while modernist in intention. Several features betray this inner duplicity.

1. Excessive personalization of ecclesial fidelity:
– The Dominicans are lauded as “special sons of the Apostolic See,” and John XXIII constantly speaks in the first person singular, assuming without question that attachment to the Chair of Peter is fulfilled by loyalty to his person and initiatives.
– The subtext: resisting or even scrutinizing his conciliar direction would be tantamount to infidelity to St. Dominic and to the Order’s identity.
– This aligns with the modernist technique condemned by St. Pius X: cloaking new doctrines and orientations under veneration for persons and institutions, while draining their objective content.

2. Ambiguous exaltation of “new and old”:
– The allocution cites:

“Every scribe instructed… is like a householder who brings forth from his treasure things new and old.”

– and:

“Be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

– In their Catholic sense, these texts command:
– deeper interior conversion,
– ever more exact fidelity to the unchanging deposit of faith.
– In John XXIII’s usage, they are re-coded to mean:
– adapting structures, methods, emphases to “modern needs,”
– inserting “new offices and counsels” so as to “better respond” to contemporary situations.

This deliberate equivocation is quintessential Modernism: using biblical phrases to justify pastoral and doctrinal plasticity, exactly what *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi* anathematize. The language is smooth, optimistic, devoid of warning about error, heresy, or apostasy—an ominous silence.

3. Sanitized and bureaucratic tone:
– No mention of:
– Hell,
– judgment,
– the necessity of being in the state of grace,
– the danger of heresy devouring religious Orders,
– the concrete enemies condemned by pre-1958 papal teaching: liberalism, socialism, Freemasonry, indifferentism.
– Instead, generalized exhortations to “apostolate,” “missions,” and “study” as neutral activities, easily compatible with the anthropocentric, dialogical ethos of the conciliar sect.

Silence here is not accidental; it is the method. The text breathes *naturalistic optimism* and avoids the vocabulary of supernatural combat. This is already a departure from the language of Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII, whose magisterial texts, while charitable, are sharply doctrinal, anti-liberal, anti-modernist, and explicitly supernatural.

Theological Subversion: Redefining Preaching without Dogmatic Combat

The allocution continually praises the Order of Preachers for its mission:

“Those who are called Preachers announce the word of truth, bring the truth, fight for the truth.”

On its face, this aligns with Dominican identity. Yet observe what is missing and what is reoriented.

1. No reference to the integral content of the *verbum veritatis*:
– There is no explicit affirmation that:
– the Catholic Church is the only ark of salvation;
– all non-Catholic religions are false and cannot save as such (cf. *Syllabus* 16–18);
– heresy severs from the Church and from jurisdiction (as affirmed by classical theology and codified by Canon 188.4, 1917 Code).
– There is no charge to combat:
– Protestantism,
– Modernism,
– Communism as a Satanic anti-Christian system (as Pius XI and Pius XII did),
– or the infiltration of Liberal Catholicism and naturalism within theology.

By 1961, Modernism condemned by St. Pius X has long since resurfaced in exegetical and theological centers, notably within religious Orders. The first duty of a true Pontiff addressing Dominicans—guardians of doctrine—would be to sound the alarm, to command doctrinal purgation, to recall *Pascendi* and *Lamentabili san e exitu* as binding. Here: total silence. Such silence, given the context, is itself an indictment.

2. “Preaching” reduced to pastoral efficiency:
– John XXIII links Dominican preaching to:
– adapting studies “so that Christian doctrine may respond to the needs and demands of our age,”
– perfecting “missionary efficiency,”
– educating youth,
– and engaging in publishing “of every kind.”

All these activities are good only under one non-negotiable condition: that they transmit the unchanged Catholic faith, condemn prevailing errors, and refuse all compromise. The pre-1958 Magisterium insists on this:
– Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that true peace and order are possible only under the social reign of Christ the King; any naturalistic, neutral, or religiously pluralist approach is intrinsically disordered.
– Pius IX condemns placing false religions on the same footing as the true, and condemns “freedom of cults” and the secularist state.

But this allocution never recalls:
– the duty to fight religious liberty errors,
– the obligation to oppose ecumenism understood as parity of confessions,
– the need to reject rationalist biblical criticism.

Instead, its ethos converges with the soon-to-be-opened Vatican II: Dominicans are subtly encouraged to be theological engineers of “new approaches,” precisely what St. Pius X identified as the method of Modernists: reforming exegesis, theology, catechesis, and ecclesial structures under the pretext of pastoral needs.

3. False hermeneutic of “new and old”:
– The repeated theme: uniting “new studies and purposes” with ancient fervor.
– In Catholic terms: *nova et vetera* means expounding the same dogma with renewed clarity, never diluting or reshaping it.
– In conciliar usage (already visible here):
– “New” increasingly means:
– ecumenical openness,
– softening condemnation of error,
– anthropocentrism,
– dialogue with the world,
– sociological and psychological categories displacing metaphysical and dogmatic ones.

This allocution is an early charter of that distortion. It points Dominicans toward precisely those domains (studies, missions, youth formation, publishing) that will soon be commandeered to normalize liturgical deformations, new ecclesiology, and doctrinal relativism in the “Church of the New Advent.”

Conciliar Fruits: How This Mentality Devoured the Preaching Orders

From a historical-theological vantage, the symptomatic dimension is unmistakable.

1. Immediate aftermath:
– Within a few years of this speech:
– the conciliar sect’s “Vatican II” imposes:
– a novel doctrine on religious liberty,
– false ecumenism,
– collegiality,
– a new attitude to false religions and the world, all in contradiction with prior solemn teaching.
– the Dominicans—especially in Europe and North America—become laboratories of:
– Modernist exegesis,
– liturgical experimentation,
– political progressivism,
– moral laxism,
– doctrinal minimalism.

The predicted “coherence” between old and new manifests in practice as the subordination of the old to the new; traditional constitutions are rewritten, habits abandoned, cloisters emptied, seminaries and studia infected with the very “evolution of dogma” condemned by St. Pius X.

2. The allocution as enabling text:
– By pre-emptively blessing “new offices and counsels” and praising adaptation to “modern conditions,” John XXIII:
– disarms resistance,
– baptizes structural and doctrinal experimentation under the label of fidelity to St. Dominic,
– transforms supernatural obedience into institutional compliance with a revolutionary agenda.

This is systemically Modernist:
– *Lex credendi* (rule of belief) is bent by:
– *lex agendi* (“pastoral practice”), under the pretext that new challenges require new applications.
– Once the Order accepts this principle, it becomes organically integrated into the paramasonic structure occupying Rome.

3. Contrast with pre-1958 papal directives to religious:
– True popes of earlier centuries, addressing Orders, insist upon:
– strict observance of rule,
– doctrinal orthodoxy,
– rejection of laxism and novelty,
– discipline in studies according to the perennial scholastic method.
– Pius XII still commands:
– fidelity to Thomism,
– condemnation of new theology.
– John XXIII’s allocution, by contrast, is devoid of doctrinal warning, devoid of any specific reaffirmation contra Modernism; it is pure affirmation and future-oriented optimism.

This lack of doctrinal precision, in the exact historical moment when precision was most needed, is not neutral. *Qui tacet consentire videtur* (he who is silent is seen to consent). The silence regarding Modernism, liberalism, and masonic infiltrations—so clearly denounced by Pius IX and St. Pius X—while extolling an opening to “new needs,” signals alignment with those forces.

Instrumentalizing Obedience: From Guardian of Truth to Organ of the Neo-Church

A core gravity of this allocution lies in its manipulation of the Dominican vow of obedience.

1. Attachment to the Apostolic See:
– The text recalls with historical accuracy:
– Honorius III’s bull,
– the early papal mandates confirming the Order’s mission.
– But then:
– it equates unconditional fidelity to the perennial Roman Magisterium with unconditional collaboration with John XXIII’s aggiornamento.

Before 1958, Dominican obedience meant:
– defending Thomistic doctrine as the normative theology (as recommended by numerous papal documents),
– combating heresy even within the clergy and academia,
– resisting secularization of Church and state as condemned by the *Syllabus* and later encyclicals.

In this allocution, obedience is redefined de facto as:
– alignment with the conciliar reform program,
– openness to structural and pastoral innovations blessed from above, even if they dilute or relativize doctrinal clarity.

2. The moral trap:
– Dominican superiors and friars who, in conscience, would have resisted the conciliar novelties could more easily be branded as disobedient to their own charism, because the usurper had framed that charism as support for his program.
– Thus obedience is weaponized to impose disorientation and, eventually, to conform an entire Order to the heterodox tendencies of the conciliar sect.

This is the inversion warned against implicitly by the traditional teaching on the limits of obedience:
– Obedience is owed in all that is not sin and does not subvert the faith.
– No religious vow can bind to accept doctrines or rites contrary to the faith of all time.
– When an apparent “Pope” uses the language of obedience to introduce precisely those novelties, the contradiction reveals his lack of legitimate authority, in line with the theological principles articulated by classical authors cited in integral Catholic tradition.

Omissions that Condemn: The Absent Supernatural Horizon

Most damning is what this allocution does not say.

1. No insistence on:
– the Most Holy Sacrifice as propitiatory,
– Eucharistic reparation,
– Marian rosary and penance as weapons against contemporary apostasy,
– the necessity of the state recognizing Christ’s Kingship (cf. *Quas Primas*),
– the evil of the secular-liberal state condemned in the *Syllabus*.

2. No warning against:
– Modernist theology and historical criticism (explicitly condemned in *Lamentabili*),
– syncretistic “dialogue” with false religions,
– the denial of the Church’s exclusive soteriological status,
– masonic and liberal infiltration denounced by Pius IX and Leo XIII.

3. No mention of:
– the last ends: death, judgment, Heaven, Hell.
– the gravity of damnation for those led astray by error, including clerics.

Silence on these is not mere oversight in a short discourse; it is methodological. By 1961, corruption in seminaries, biblical institutes, and religious Orders was already widespread. A true Roman Pontiff, speaking to the Order of Preachers—a bulwark historically raised against Albigensians, Averroism, Protestantism—would necessarily recall them to:
– militant orthodoxy,
– rigorous Thomism,
– aggressive refutation of modern errors.

Instead, the allocution is tranquil, managerial, congratulatory. It confirms the Order in a path of institutional self-satisfaction and “updating,” not in penance and doctrinal warfare. This naturalistic, horizontal tone in a context of advancing apostasy is itself a mark of the conciliar sect’s mentality, the same mentality anathematized in the pre-1958 Magisterium.

Conclusion: A Programmatic Step in the Co-option of a Great Order

Seen through the lens of unchanging Catholic doctrine prior to 1958, this allocution is not an innocent paternal exhortation. It is:

– an attempt by John XXIII to:
– wrap his revolutionary intentions in the mantle of Dominican tradition,
– redirect their obedience from the immutable faith to his aggiornamento,
– habituate them to mixing “new” (conciliar experiments) with “old” (their name and history) under the deceptive rubric of continuity.
– a symptomatic document of the conciliar sect’s method:
– preserving pious vocabulary while silencing doctrinal precision,
– praising zeal while never defining its necessary doctrinal content,
– instrumentalizing religious Orders as transmission belts for the neo-church’s agenda.

Against this, one must recall with unwavering clarity:

– *Veritas Domini manet in aeternum* (the truth of the Lord remains forever).
– Dogma does not evolve; the mandate to preach does not bend to the world’s expectations.
– Any “preaching” that does not:
– confess the exclusive truth of the Catholic faith,
– condemn condemned errors,
– call souls to repentance and sacramental life in the true Church,
is not Dominican, not Catholic, and not apostolic, but an echo of the paramasonic, anthropocentric religion of post-conciliarism.

The true glory of St. Dominic’s sons is not to serve as eloquent chaplains of the conciliar revolution, but to stand—against it if necessary—with the unaltered faith, the uncorrupted Sacrifice, and the social Kingship of Christ, as solemnly taught and defended by the authentic Magisterium up to 1958.

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Source:
Moderatoribus atque Sodalibus Ordis Fratrum Praedicatorum, qui Generali Coetui Religiosae suae Communitatis interfuerunt (die 25 m. Septembris, A. D. MCMLXI)   (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025