Ioannes Roncalli’s allocution of 27 January 1960 to the Roman clergy during the so‑called diocesan synod exhorts priests to holiness, pastoral zeal, sacrificial charity, and fidelity to their duties; he unfolds the image of Christ as the Good Shepherd and “door of the sheep,” reflects on priestly identity, praises administrative and curial service as authentic apostolate, and invokes patristic models like St Gregory the Great and the Curé of Ars to inspire a renewed pastoral consciousness in Rome, especially in view of broader ecclesial tasks.
Yet precisely in this apparently pious rhetoric lies the programmatic inversion of the Catholic priesthood into an horizontal, bureaucratic, conciliatory function at the service of the emerging conciliar revolution.
The Allocution as Manifesto of a Counterfeit Pastoral Religion
From Catholic Pontificate to Program of a “Pastoral” Usurpation
Already the historical and dogmatic context unmasks this discourse.
Spoken by Ioannes XXIII — the first in the line of usurpers enthroned after 1958 — this allocution is not an innocuous exhortation but a nodal text in the paramasonic “pastoral” reconfiguration of the Roman clergy. It must be read against:
– the unambiguous pre‑1958 doctrine that the Church is a *perfect society* with divine rights over persons and nations (Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, especially condemned propositions 19, 39, 55, 77–80);
– the magisterial insistence that the Church’s first task is supernatural: salvation of souls through right faith, the Most Holy Sacrifice, and the sacraments, under the Kingship of Christ (Pius XI, *Quas Primas*);
– the solemn condemnations of Modernism (St Pius X, *Lamentabili sane exitu*, *Pascendi dominici gregis*) which anathematize precisely the evolutionary, “pastoral,” experiential categories silently presupposed by Roncalli.
Measured against these standards, the allocution reveals itself as a sophisticated attempt to recast the Roman presbyterate as the operational engine of the coming conciliar sect: a clergy detached from dogmatic militancy, neutralized by administrative careers, “pastoral” elasticity, and a sentimental cult of the “Good Shepherd” severed from the absolute demands of *veritas* and Christ’s social Kingship.
Factual Level: Pious Topcoat over Structural Subversion
1. Roncalli correctly recalls that:
– not all priests are automatically holy;
– the priest is “taken from among men, appointed for men in things pertaining to God” (Heb 5:1);
– the model is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep;
– many priests in Rome are absorbed by curial and institutional tasks.
These statements, taken in isolation, echo traditional themes. But they are weaponized by omission and redefinition.
2. He glorifies the Roman environment as center of worldwide structures and insists that numerous priestly functions “indirectly” serve pastoral care and thus constitute true apostolate. This is the hinge:
– The speech normalizes the massive diversion of clergy from direct care of souls into bureaucratic and “pastoral” engineering roles supporting a globalized apparatus.
– Instead of warning that over‑institutionalization and worldliness suffocate priestly identity, he justifies and theologically perfumes this shift.
3. He recounts three emblematic scenes:
– the beatification of the Curé of Ars;
– the coronation of St Pius X;
– his own coronation, read alongside St Gregory the Great and “sic transit gloria mundi.”
On the surface, this looks like continuity. In reality:
– He instrumentalizes St Pius X and the Curé of Ars — champions of doctrinal intransigence and sacrificial pastoral zeal — as decorative icons to sanction his program, a program directly opposed to their anti‑modernist legacy.
– He appropriates St Gregory’s *Regula Pastoralis* while simultaneously emptying it of its sharp doctrinal and disciplinary edge, transmuting it into a generic “pastoral style” compatible with the future aggiornamento.
In short: the allocution covers a structural mutation — the redirection of the Roman clergy from guardians of immutable doctrine and the Most Holy Sacrifice into functionaries of a “pastoral,” dialogical, soon‑to‑be conciliar system — under a patristic and ascetical varnish.
Linguistic Level: Sentimental Pastoralism and Concealment of Combat
The rhetoric of this allocution is the rhetoric of Modernism’s second phase: not the crude denials of dogma, but the sweet dissolution of dogma in warm exhortations.
Key features:
– A continuous insistence on “Good Shepherd,” “sweetness,” “gentleness,” and affective images, while almost never speaking of:
– hell,
– divine wrath,
– the necessity of the true faith for salvation,
– objective mortal sin as the central pastoral emergency.
– Frequent use of inclusive, soft paternal expressions: “Venerable brothers and beloved sons,” “let us encourage ourselves,” “spiritual consolation.”
– The sharp language of the anti‑modernist magisterium is absent. There is no mention of “heretics,” “errors,” “condemnations,” “excommunication” as concrete pastoral tools. This silence is brutal, precisely in 1960, when St Pius X’s warnings against Modernism remained fully in force.
Where Pius IX calls out the “synagogue of Satan” (Syllabus context) and the masonic sects by name and demands militant resistance, Roncalli:
– does not name Freemasonry,
– does not warn about the enemies inside,
– does not recall *Pascendi* or *Lamentabili*, both directly binding.
This calculated omission, in a solemn address to the Roman clergy, is itself an indictment. The very city identified by Pius IX as the battlefield against masonic plots is now addressed by a “pastoral” speech that anesthetizes vigilance.
Moreover, the phraseology about various ecclesial offices:
– exalts curial service as equally apostolic, without a severe warning about the spiritual peril of worldliness, careerism, and compromise;
– flattens hierarchy of ends, as if every structural task were ipso facto holy, provided it sits under the new “pastoral” label.
This language functions as a semantic laundering of the machinery that will soon impose the conciliar revolution.
Theological Level: Subtle but Radical Displacement of Catholic Priorities
Now we confront doctrine. According to integral Catholic teaching before 1958:
– The priesthood exists *principaliter* to:
– offer the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary;
– remit sins in the sacrament of Penance;
– preach the true faith without adulteration;
– govern souls towards eternal salvation.
– The Church’s mission is supernatural, ordered to the eternal end; any “pastoral” or social activity is subordinate.
This allocution, under scrutiny, reveals multiple deviations and lethal silences.
1. Suppression of the Social Kingship of Christ
St Pius XI in *Quas Primas* teaches that peace and order are impossible unless “individuals and states recognize and practically acknowledge the rule of Christ the King” and explicitly condemns laicism and religious indifferentism.
Roncalli:
– uses John 10’s “one sheepfold, one shepherd” in a broad, almost sentimental sense, connected to the upcoming council;
– speaks of “all peoples,” “universal Church,” “pastoral care”;
– but omits any affirmation that states, laws, and public life must submit to Christ the King and to the one true Church.
This omission is not neutral. It aligns with the soon‑to‑be conciliar cult of “religious liberty” and “dialogue” condemned in advance by Pius IX (Syllabus 15–18, 77–80). By refusing to reassert the rights of Christ over nations in a major Roman address, he prepares clergy to accept their abdication.
2. Erosion of Doctrinal Militancy
The speech:
– Does not exhort priests to guard doctrine against Modernism, although St Pius X had declared Modernism “the synthesis of all heresies” and attached excommunication to its defense.
– Does not mention:
– the obligation to reject and refute condemned propositions such as:
– dogma evolving from experience;
– Scripture subject to purely critical correction;
– reduction of Revelation to inner religious feeling (all solemnly anathematized in *Lamentabili*).
– Instead, Roncalli focuses on “good example,” “kindness,” “availability,” and a vague “pastoral” presence.
This is a paradigmatic move: from *pastor veritatis* to social worker of religious consolation. The priest becomes primarily one who accompanies, not one who judges doctrine and condemns error. That is precisely the Modernist recasting of the Magisterium that the pre‑1958 Church had forbidden.
3. Ambiguous Equivalence of Direct and Indirect Pastoral Action
Roncalli distinguishes “direct” and “indirect” pastoral activity, but then:
– emphatically legitimizes the latter (curial offices, administration, “studies”) as true apostolate, without insisting that such roles are justified only insofar as they serve and flow from the primacy of the Most Holy Sacrifice and sacramental care.
– presents a dangerously fluid hierarchy: indirect tasks risk being seen as equal paths of priestly fulfilment.
Traditional doctrine:
– tolerates necessary administrative roles;
– but never ceases to recall that *munus sanctificandi* (offering Sacrifice, sacraments) and *munus docendi* in truth are primary; administration is ancillary.
By baptizing extensive bureaucratic dispersion as apostolate, without harsh cautions, this allocution theologically underwrites a clerical caste of managers and experts — the ideal human infrastructure of the conciliar sect.
4. Sanitized Use of St Pius X and St Gregory the Great
Roncalli elegizes Pius X’s coronation and quotes *Iucunda sane* on Gregory’s *Regula Pastoralis*.
But what does Gregory teach?
– that the pastor must:
– reproach vice boldly,
– preserve discipline,
– depart from secular affairs,
– defend truth against heretics,
– maintain holy severity when required.
What does Pius X do in practice?
– He crushes Modernism with doctrinal clarity, oaths, condemnations, and disciplinary measures.
Roncalli:
– praises their images,
– but emasculates their content: no call for doctrinal purges, no recall of the Oath against Modernism, no admission that the Roman clergy must be the first and sharpest anti‑modernist vanguard.
This is a theological falsification by sentimental citation: patristic and anti‑modernist giants are turned into patron saints of a “pastoral” reform they would have anathematized.
5. Silence about the State of Grace, Judgment, and Hell
The allocution addresses priests about their identity and mission but is almost entirely mute regarding:
– the absolute necessity of the state of grace;
– the danger of sacrilegious communions;
– the Four Last Things: death, judgment, hell, heaven, as concrete motive of priestly urgency.
This silence is not accidental. It manifests the anthropocentric turn: the focus is on earthly “service,” clerical styles, emotional comfort — not primarily on the dreadful responsibility of saving souls from eternal damnation.
When addressed to the clergy of the See of Peter, such omission constitutes a grave dereliction and betrays the supernatural end of the priesthood.
Symptomatic Level: The Allocution as Fruit and Engine of the Conciliar Revolution
This speech is a prelude to the so‑called “pastoral council” that will fabricate a new religion inside Catholic structures.
Several symptomatic points expose this trajectory:
1. Preparation of “Pastoral Council” Language
Roncalli repeatedly:
– exalts pastoral images stripped from doctrinal combativeness;
– relativizes juridical precision in favour of a vague spirit of service;
– speaks of “one fold and one shepherd” in terms easily reinterpreted as inclusive of all “Christian communities” and eventually all religions.
This idiom is exactly what will later:
– justify ecumenism condemned by Pius IX (Syllabus 18) and the duty of states to be religiously neutral (condemned in 55, 77–80);
– enable “hermeneutics of continuity” propaganda: the same vocabulary of Good Shepherd and charity is used to launch the opposite of the previous magisterium.
2. Clergy as Technicians of Renewal
By glorifying curial and institutional roles as “less obvious but equal apostolate,” the allocution:
– legitimizes the emergence of priest‑experts (liturgists, sociologists, diplomats) who will dismantle:
– the liturgy, transforming the Unbloody Sacrifice into anthropocentric assembly;
– catechesis, diluting dogma into experiential formulas;
– discipline, eroding fasting, enclosure, clerical dress, and separation from the world.
These are not random pathologies; they are organic consequences of a theology that blesses “indirect” service without clearly subordinating it to the altar and confessional.
3. Denial of the Real Enemy: Modernism and Masonry
Pius IX and St Pius X explicitly unmask freemasonic and modernist networks as engines of apostasy. The files we possess reiterate:
– the “synagogue of Satan” mobilizes sects against the Church;
– Modernism must be rooted out, books condemned, and offenders punished.
Roncalli, in a key clergy address in 1960:
– utters not one word about these mortal enemies;
– offers no warning against false exegetes, liberal theologians, or subversive lay movements infiltrating Rome;
– treats the crisis as non‑existent.
This is not oversight. It is complicity. The allocution thus stands as internal evidence of a paramasonic “pastoral” operation: disarm the clergy by sentimentality, then reorganize them to serve a new program.
4. Fake Humility as Screen for Usurpation
The emotional passages on “sic transit gloria mundi” and personal unworthiness aim to create an aura of benign humility.
But authentic papal humility, as in St Pius X, manifests itself by:
– obedience to previous magisterium;
– ruthless defense of souls against error;
– refusal of worldly flattery.
Roncalli’s humility carefully avoids:
– promising fidelity to *Pascendi*, *Lamentabili*, the Syllabus;
– condemning contemporary doctrinal deviances;
– affirming his office as guardian of dogma in continuity with these texts.
It is the counterfeit humility of *sub persona mansuetudinis* (under the appearance of gentleness) proceeding to subvert.
Concrete Points of Rupture with Pre‑1958 Teaching
Without fabricating quotations, we can list precise contrasts where this allocution, by silence or emphasis, diverges from the integral doctrine:
1. Absence of Condemnation of Liberal Errors
– Pius IX explicitly condemns:
– the error that every man may embrace any religion (Syllabus 15–16),
– the equal status of religions in the state (77),
– reconciliation with liberalism (80).
– Roncalli, while addressing the clergy of the city most threatened by liberal regimes and sects, avoids reaffirming these truths. This omission facilitates their later practical denial.
2. No Mention of Modernist Condemnations
– St Pius X, in *Lamentabili* and *Pascendi*, defines propositions about evolving dogma, reduced inspiration, and experiential faith as heretical.
– By 1960, those very errors are widespread. Yet Roncalli gives no directive to identify and expel such modernists among clergy, seminarians, and professors in Rome. Instead, he speaks only of style and zeal.
3. Neutralization of Clerical Separation from the World
– Trent (Session XXII, De Reform., c. 1) and the consistent magisterium require priests:
– to avoid secular business,
– to wear clerical dress,
– to flee worldliness.
– Roncalli mentions dangers of being absorbed in secular duties, but the overall thrust of the allocution is permissive: administrative and “cultural” engagements are canonized as forms of apostolate, without strong juridical and ascetical guardrails.
4. Substitution of Eucharistic Sacrifice with Pastoral Presence
– He mentions the Eucharist as nourishment, but the center of his exhortation is less the daily offering of the Unbloody Sacrifice in fear and trembling, and more the shepherd’s “availability,” “kindness,” and “contact” with people.
– This anticipates the conciliar reduction of the priest to president of assembly, where the Holy Mass is no longer primarily propitiatory Sacrifice but communal meal.
Exposure of Spiritual Bankruptcy: What a Catholic Address Should Have Said
To see the bankruptcy, we must outline what an authentic Roman Pontiff, faithful to pre‑1958 magisterium, would have declared to the Roman clergy in 1960:
– Reaffirm with Pius IX and St Pius X:
– that Modernism remains the chief enemy, that its propositions are condemned under pain of excommunication;
– that any priest infected with such ideas must either retract or be removed from ministry.
– Insist:
– that the Most Holy Sacrifice, offered according to the traditional Roman rite, is the heart of priesthood;
– that the priest exists to save souls from hell by preaching dogma, condemning error, and administering sacraments.
– Warn:
– against secret societies, political naturalism, and human rights ideologies that dethrone Christ the King;
– against those who would turn the coming council into a “pastoral” pretext to relativize dogma.
– Command:
– strict observance of clerical discipline, including detachment from profane business and from worldly activism;
– doctrinal formation anchored in the Fathers, Trent, Vatican I, the anti‑modernist magisterium.
Roncalli does none of this. His allocution is therefore not merely incomplete; it is a functional betrayal. By its omissions and its sentimental language, it anesthetizes precisely where a Catholic shepherd would sound the alarm.
Pastoral Flattery of the Roman Clergy as Instrument of Control
Roncalli repeatedly assures:
“All who serve in the Curia, though far from direct care of souls, accomplish a true apostolate, not less meritorious.”
This is the ideological key:
– He absolves and flatters a system that had already begun, in practice, to displace supernatural priorities with technocratic ones.
– He does not call them to examine whether their offices serve truth or compromise it; whether their diplomatic, ecumenical, academic endeavors align with prior condemnations or not.
– By making their very institutional position a guarantee of apostolate, he in effect commands obedience to the apparatus which he and his successors will retool into the conciliar sect.
Thus the Roman clergy are gently bound: their identity is tied to serving a structure already being ideologically shifted. To criticize that structure will soon appear as disobedience to the very “pastoral” ideals invoked here.
Conclusion: One Fold, One Shepherd — But Which Fold, Which Shepherd?
Roncalli ends with the Johannine promise:
“And there shall be one fold and one shepherd.”
In Catholic doctrine:
– This refers exclusively to the one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, subject to the Roman Pontiff, guardian of immutable dogma and Sacrifice.
In the allocution:
– this phrase is subtly detached from sharp ecclesiological borders;
– situated in the horizon of an ecumenical council already conceived as “pastoral” and attractive to “all peoples.”
Combined with his systematic silence on Modernism, religious liberty errors, and the Social Kingship of Christ, this usage prefigures its conciliar distortion: from call to conversion into slogan of irenic convergence.
The theological and spiritual bankruptcy of this text lies therefore in its essence:
– It speaks often of the “Good Shepherd,” but refuses to arm His priests against wolves.
– It praises great anti‑modernist and patristic shepherds, but amputates their intransigence.
– It legitimizes the swelling of central structures without demanding doctrinal rigor proportionate to such influence.
– It redirects priestly fervor from guarding dogma and Sacrifice to generic “pastoral” activism — the matrix of the “Church of the New Advent.”
Far from being a minor devotional discourse, the 27 January 1960 allocution is a strategic step in neutralizing the Roman clergy to make them instruments of a counterfeit aggiornamento. Under the guise of charity and humility, it prepares them to collaborate, willingly and even enthusiastically, in the construction of the conciliar sect which would soon eclipse — but never replace — the immaculate Spouse of Christ, who remains where she has always been: in the faithful custody of the integral doctrine, sacraments, and discipline handed down uncorrupted before 1958.
Source:
Allocutio die XXVII Ianuarii A. D. MCMLX habita in tertia Synodi sessione, Ioannes PP.XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025