In this allocution at the opening session of the Roman Synod (25 January 1960), John XXIII addresses Roman clergy, invoking Saints Peter and Paul, exalting the sacredness of the priestly office, urging personal holiness, Eucharistic piety, attachment to the Roman Catechism, love of the liturgy, and fidelity to pastoral duties. The text appears outwardly pious and traditional, yet it functions as a carefully staged liturgical and rhetorical screen preparing the conciliar revolution, instrumentalizing orthodox vocabulary to anesthetize discernment and secure obedience to an already planned subversion of the priesthood and of the Sacrifice.
Pious Rhetoric as a Veil for the Demolition of the Priesthood
Invocation of Apostolic Authority to Legitimize a Non-Apostolic Project
From the first lines, the usurper wraps himself in apostolic imagery:
“You will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people”
and then:
“O Blessed Peter… behold I also, last and unworthy successor of yours, have been called to the double office of Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth and Bishop of Rome…”
This is the foundational maneuver: a man who inaugurates the conciliar upheaval claims quietly, almost sentimentally, the prerogatives of the true Roman Pontiff, while setting in motion the very processes that contradict the immutable doctrine of the papacy and of the Church.
Measured by the unchanging magisterium before 1958, several points emerge:
– The authentic Roman Pontiff is bound to guard, not reinvent, the deposit: *“Tu es Petrus”* institutes a rock, not a laboratory. Vatican I (Pastor Aeternus, 1870) defines the primacy to confirm brethren in the same faith always held; the post-1958 revolutionaries are architects of a new religion.
– The allocution presupposes the legitimacy of a coming synodal-conciliar activism that in fact will relativize the very doctrines it verbally venerates: religious liberty, collegiality against papal monarchy, ecumenism condemned by the Syllabus of Errors (Pius IX, errors 15–18, 55, 77–80), liturgical transformation, a new ecclesiology.
– By invoking the Council of Jerusalem as a proto-synod, he subtly normalizes a perpetual “updating” dynamic, against which St. Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi condemned the modernist myth of ongoing doctrinal evolution (*“veritas… cum homine evolvitur”* — condemned proposition).
Thus from the outset, the speech is an act of symbolic seizure: apostolic language is placed in the mouth of one who prepares a non-apostolic “Church of the New Advent.” The more he speaks of Peter and Paul, the more clearly he betrays them by his subsequent deeds.
Selective Orthodoxy: True Phrases Deployed toward a New Religion
Throughout the allocution, many sentences are, taken materially, correct and seemingly edifying:
– The priestly person is sacred.
– The priest is configured to Christ the High Priest.
– The Most Holy Sacrifice is central.
– The Roman Catechism is praised as a sure doctrinal norm.
– The priest must be detached from worldly affairs, faithful to his office, guardian of liturgy, shepherd of souls.
However, in theology, context and intention are decisive. *Abusus non tollit usum* (abuse does not remove proper use), but also: orthodox formulas can be abused as camouflage. Several structural omissions and dissonances reveal the underlying corruption.
1. No mention of:
– The public, social Kingship of Christ as binding on states, as solemnly taught by Pius XI in Quas Primas: that “peace will not come until individuals and states recognize and obey the reign of Christ.”
– The intrinsic opposition between the Church and the anti-Christian forces of liberalism, naturalism, and Freemasonry exposed by Pius IX in the Syllabus and in his allocutions.
– The doctrinal war waged by Modernism, explicitly unmasked and anathematized by St. Pius X in Lamentabili and Pascendi, including the condemnation of precisely the “historical-evolutionary” spirit that will govern Vatican II.
2. No explicit denunciation of:
– Religious indifferentism and “dialogue” ideology, already infiltrating theological circles.
– Ecumenical relativism which will shortly be officially enthroned.
– The nascent cult of man, later proclaimed by the conciliar sect in the name of “dignity” and “rights,” contra the duty of nations to submit to Christ.
3. The priesthood is described in lofty tones, but:
– Without warning against the soon-to-be-imposed new rite that will deform the theology of the Sacrifice, diminish the propitiatory character, blur the distinction between priest and people, and produce an unprecedented crisis of faith.
– Without a syllable about the danger of altering the sacramental rites themselves, in direct contradiction to the Tridentine canon that anathematizes those who claim pastors may change received rites into new ones.
Here lies the key: the text affirms certain pre-conciliar truths but isolates them from their militant consequences. It praises the Roman Catechism yet prepares a council that will bury it in practice. It exalts priestly sanctity yet inaugurates a structure that will poison seminaries with modernism and desacralization.
This method is modernist to the core: retain vocabulary, subvert content; speak venerably, act destructively.
Language of Devotion, Silence of Combat: The Grave Omission of the Supernatural Conflict
An integral Catholic reading must expose not only what is said, but what is conspicuously unsaid.
The allocution:
– Speaks affectionately of clergy.
– Appeals to Scripture.
– Commends liturgical fidelity.
– Encourages meditation on St. Paul and St. Peter.
But it is utterly mute regarding:
– The real presence of organized forces—Masonic, liberal, modernist—working to destroy the Church; precisely those denounced by Pius IX as the “synagogue of Satan” organizing a war against the Church.
– The errors catalogued in Lamentabili and Pascendi: doctrine evolving with history, dogma reduced to inner experience, Scripture turned into a merely human document. Yet these are the very principles that would be allowed to flourish under the structures he is creating.
– The obligation of pastors publicly to resist the state and any power that violates the rights of the Church (Syllabus 19–21, 39–45, 55).
– The Four Last Things: no forceful recall of judgment, Hell, necessity of state of grace, reality of mortal sin as the central pastoral urgency. Holiness is treated in general, affective language, without the sharp, patristic-Tridentine gravity.
This silence is not neutral. At a moment when modernist currents are visibly at work, the refusal to name them, condemn them, and arm the clergy against them is itself complicity.
St. Pius X, in stark contrast:
– Named Modernism the “synthesis of all heresies.”
– Imposed the Anti-Modernist Oath.
– Explicitly condemned the reinterpretation of dogma and Scripture along historical-relativistic lines.
The allocution, delivered only a few years later, never once recalls this doctrinal war. The effect is to anesthetize vigilance: the priest is told to be pious, but not to recognize and fight the wolves. This is pastoral treason wrapped in gentle words.
The Misuse of the Roman Catechism: A Pre-Conciliar Facade
One striking passage praises the Catechismus Romanus:
“We desire… to highlight the deserved praise, timeliness, and usefulness of this catechism, especially for those who prepare sermons and cannot devote themselves to deeper studies…”
He even cites the judgment that it seems “divinely given to the Church.”
Measured against subsequent developments, this praise is deeply ironic:
– The Roman Catechism is the clearest doctrinal synthesis of Trent: on the Sacrifice of the Mass, propitiatory and offered by a sacrificing priest; on the unique truth of the Catholic Church; on the necessity of the sacraments; on sin, confession, indulgences, purgatory, and the authority of the Church.
– The conciliar revolution that John XXIII initiates will:
– Replace integral catechesis with ambiguous, anthropocentric “religious education.”
– Suppress the Roman Catechism in formation in favor of “pastoral” experimentation.
– Introduce precisely those doctrines condemned by the Syllabus and Trent under the guise of “development.”
Thus the allocution uses the Roman Catechism as a badge of continuity, while opening the door to a council that will, in practice, dethrone it. This is the hermeneutic of deceit: verbally uphold pre-1958 norms, strategically neutralize them by structures and orientations that contradict them.
From an integral Catholic standpoint, a true pope praising the Roman Catechism on the eve of a major council would simultaneously:
– Bind the council to its doctrine.
– Forbid any formulation that softens Trent’s definitions.
– Explicitly condemn modernist distortions as already judged.
None of this occurs. Instead, we have sentimental encomium without juridical consequence; a hallmark of the conciliar sect’s rhetoric.
The Sacred Priesthood Emptied of Its Militant Dimension
The allocution elaborates on the sacredness of the priest:
– He is set apart by ordination.
– His principal duty: offer the immaculate Victim, continue the Redemption.
– The Tridentine teaching on the divine dignity of the priestly ministry is cited.
– Confession and absolution are exalted.
– A life of purity, detachment, and liturgical spirit is demanded.
At first sight, this seems exemplary. But examine the deeper pattern.
1. The priest is reduced to interior piety and liturgical correctness, without:
– An explicit mandate to defend the flock against doctrinal poisoning from false shepherds, theologians, and structures.
– A clear denunciation of the coming “new theology” that will reinterpret sacrifice, sin, grace, and mission.
2. The emphasis on liturgy is subtly reoriented:
– He recommends love and study of “the sacred liturgy” in general terms, without anchoring it firmly in the immutable Roman rite as codified by St. Pius V.
– He omits any warning that altering the rite of the Mass touches the very heart of the Faith; whereas Quo Primum and the doctrine of Trent bind the Church to the substance of the traditional rite and its theology.
– The affectionate attention to rubrics and Latin in 1960 acts as a sedative, just before the radical metamorphosis of the rite into a man-centered assembly service erupts from the same authorities.
3. The priestly sanctity preached here is predominantly:
– Moralistic and affective (kindness, zeal, liturgical taste),
– Not militantly doctrinal as in Trent, Pius X, or pre-1958 papal teaching, where a priest is first of all a guardian of sound doctrine and a sworn enemy of heresy.
The result is a disarmed clergy: trained to be devout functionaries of a structure they will not recognize as having become a paramasonic, pseudo-ecclesial organism. The speech forges virtuous obedience severed from the objective criterion: adherence to the integral Catholic faith. That is not holiness; it is the preparation of victims.
The Modernist Method: Orthodoxy in Words, Revolution in Deeds
To expose fully the bankruptcy of the allocution’s underlying logic, we must read it in light of the condemned modernist system (Pascendi, Lamentabili):
– Modernism separates “vital” pastoral exhortation from dogmatic clarity.
– It cloaks innovations in the language of tradition to avoid detection.
– It appeals to “return to sources” while relativizing the dogmatic formulations of the Magisterium.
– It refuses sharp condemnations, preferring irenic, inclusive tones, which is itself a doctrinal stance against the Church’s perennial militancy.
This allocution:
– Uses Scripture and Trent but never mentions Modernism as a present enemy.
– Praises the Roman Catechism but never binds its content against future “pastoral” changes.
– Speaks of priestly sanctity but never teaches priests to measure commands of superiors against the fixed standard of prior dogma, nor to resist unlawful novelties.
Thus, on the symptomatic level, it is a model modernist text:
– Maximal devotional flourish, minimal doctrinal precision regarding the crisis.
– Abundant appeals to sentiments (humility, unworthiness, consolation).
– Total silence about the grave errors explicitly listed and anathematized by pre-1958 popes, precisely where such recall would be morally obligatory.
In the integral Catholic perspective, such silence in that context is not omission but culpable concealment. The priest, instead of being formed as a soldier of Christ in a war for souls, is lulled into an aesthetic, depoliticized, de-supernaturalized sphere where obedience to the conciliar machine will appear as fidelity to Christ.
God’s Rights Ignored: Absence of the Social Kingship and Condemnation of Liberalism
A decisive theological flaw: there is no proclamation of the rights of Christ the King over societies, legislation, and nations.
– Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that calamities afflicting nations arise because they have excluded Christ and His law from public life and that peace is possible only in the reign of Christ over all orders of life.
– Pius IX in the Syllabus condemns:
– Separation of Church and State (55),
– State monopoly over education (45–48),
– Religious indifferentism and liberty of cult (15–18, 77–79),
– Reconciliation of the papacy with liberalism and “modern civilization” (80).
The allocution, addressed to the clergy of the City of Rome, says nothing about their duty to oppose liberal legislation, secularism, and naturalist “rights.” Nothing about the obligation to labor that Christ reign in law, schooling, culture, as doctrine demands.
This naturalistic omission, in 1960, when laicism and anti-Christian states already dominate, is not minor. It is a pastoral choice that aligns with the coming doctrine of religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) and ecumenical relativism: shift from defending divine rights to cultivating a neutral “holiness” coexisting with apostasy of nations.
Integral Catholic doctrine: *lex divina praeeminet omni humanae legi* (divine law takes absolute precedence over any human law). Any true successor of Pius IX and Pius XI, speaking to clergy on the eve of a major council, would recall these principles with burning clarity. Here: silence. This silence is doctrinal betrayal.
Preparation of a New Ecclesiology: Priestly Holiness Severed from the True Church
The allocution repeatedly exhorts priests to holiness, charity, zeal, liturgical spirit, pastoral care. All these are objectively good—provided they are rooted in the true Church and ordered to the one, exclusive saving religion.
But:
– The same man will convoke a council that teaches an ecclesiology in which:
– The unique identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church is blurred.
– Non-Catholic sects and false religions are treated as “means of salvation.”
– The concept of the Church as a perfect, juridically complete society is softened in favor of an amorphous “People of God” theology, contrary to Syllabus 19 and Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis rightly understood.
– Priestly identity is thus being subtly dislodged from:
– Defender of the one ark of salvation,
– Toward being an “animator” of a broader, dialogical, religiously pluralist space.
The allocution never arms priests against such shifts. It trains them to be pious instruments of whoever occupies the Roman structures, regardless of continuity with prior dogma. That is the core spiritual bankruptcy: holiness decoupled from the objective marks of the true Church and from the duty to reject heresy and usurpers.
The Consequence: From Devout Words to the Abomination of Desolation
Judged by the criterion of unchanging pre-1958 doctrine:
– A true pope cannot:
– Prepare or approve texts contradicting the Syllabus, Trent, and the anti-modernist magisterium.
– Oversee the subversion of the Holy Sacrifice into a Protestantized communal supper.
– Permit, encourage, or fail to condemn teachings implying evolution of dogma, denial of the social Kingship of Christ, or relativization of the unique salvific role of the Church.
– A manifest promoter or architect of such things cannot be simultaneously:
– The rock of orthodoxy,
– The mouthpiece of Christ.
The allocution’s “spirituality” must therefore be unmasked as instrumental: a rhetoric designed to:
– Soothe Roman clergy,
– Wrap an impending revolution in incense and biblical phrases,
– Prevent legitimate resistance by presenting innovation as the flowering of the same sanctity and priesthood he so warmly extols.
The outcome is visible:
– A devastated priesthood: moral collapse, doctrinal ignorance, liturgical abuses, loss of vocations.
– A “neo-church” that extols human rights above God’s rights, worships dialogue, kisses the idols of false religions, and profanes what remains of Catholic signs.
– A paramasonic structure in Rome presenting itself as “the Church,” served by clergy formed precisely in the sentimental, non-combative, selectively traditional spirit of this allocution.
Under the integral Catholic faith, an exhortation to priestly holiness that refuses to name and fight the reigning heresy becomes a refined temptation. It invites priests to sanctify themselves in service of an anti-Catholic program. That is not sanctity; that is a sacrilegious parody.
Return to the Authentic Standard: Pre-1958 Magisterium as Sole Criterion
To rescue priests and faithful from this confusion, one must:
– Measure every text and act of the conciliar sect, including this allocution, exclusively by the constant teaching of:
– Trent and its Catechism.
– The Syllabus and Quanta Cura.
– Leo XIII’s doctrinal encyclicals.
– St. Pius X’s Lamentabili and Pascendi with their explicit condemnations.
– The pre-1958 papal tradition on the Mass, sacraments, the Church, the papacy, social order.
Applied here, that norm reveals:
– The allocution’s references to Trent and Roman Catechism are exploited decoratively, not normatively.
– Its omission of condemnation of Modernism and Liberalism contradicts the duty of a true Supreme Pastor under grave circumstances.
– Its soothing, irenic tone manifests precisely the “moderate,” “pastoral” modernist mentality already condemned.
Hence this text, though strewn with pious sentiments, must be recognized as part of the apparatus by which the conciliar sect anesthetized resistance, desacralized the priesthood, and paved the way for the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not.
Any clergy seeking true holiness today must read such documents not as secure guides, but as warnings: examples of how orthodoxy in language can be manipulated to mask the greatest betrayal.
Source:
Allocutio die XXV Ianuarii A. D. MCMLX habita in prima Synodi sessione, Ioannes PP.XXIII (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025