John XXIII (4) After His Death: Public Accusation of Occult Heresies

John XXIII (4) After His Death:

Public Accusation of Occult Heresies

 

Table of Contents

 

Introduction

1. The Advanced Proofs of Angelo Roncalli’s Membership in Freemasonry

1.1. Testimony of Carlos Vazquez Rangel, Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Mexican Masons

1.2. Testimony of Pier Carpi

1.3. Testimony of Franco Bellegrandi

1.4. Testimony of Gioele Magaldi

2. Freemasonry as Formal Heresy
3. Evaluation of the Credibility of the Witnesses

3.1. Analysis of the Testimony of Carlos Vazquez Rangel

3.2. Analysis of the Testimony of Pier Carpi

3.3. Analysis of the Testimony of Franco Bellegrandi

3.4. Analysis of the Testimony of Gioele Magaldi

4. General Principles of the Credibility of a Testimony

4.1. General Criteria

4.2. Specific Credibility of a Testimony from a Freemason

5. Remarkable Absence in the Pecorelli List and from Don Luigi Villa

5.1. The Pecorelli List

5.2. Don Luigi Villa

6. Absence of Irrefutable External Proof and Thomistic Principles

Conclusion

 

Introduction

 

This chapter deals with Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, known under the name of John XXIII, whose affiliation to a heretical sect would be discovered after his death according to several authors.

 

In accordance with the certain doctrine of the Church, a public heretic cannot validly hold the papal office, because he is separated from the Mystical Body of Christ (see the chapter on “heresy”).

 

This case is exceptional, because the publicity of the heresy would have been made a few years after the death of John XXIII, while during his entire life it would have been occult until this discovery.

 

1. The Advanced Proofs of Angelo Roncalli’s Membership in Freemasonry

 

Testimonies indicate that Angelo Roncalli would have been initiated into Freemasonry before his election.

 

1.1. Testimony of Carlos Vazquez Rangel, according to some he was Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the Masons of Mexico

 

Carlos Vazquez Rangel declares: “The same day, in Paris, the profane (‘non-mason’ in Masonic jargon) Angelo Roncalli (John XXIII) and the Profane Giovanni Montini (Paul VI) were initiated into the august mysteries of the Fraternity. Thus it turns out that a large part of what was accomplished at the Council rested on Masonic principles.” (Interview published in the magazine Proceso, cited by Mary Ball Martinez in The Athanasian, Vol. XIV, n° 4, 1st June 1993).

 

1.2. Testimony of Pier Carpi

 

He reports an initiation in 1935 in Turkey, linked to a Rosicrucian society (The Prophecies of John XXIII, 1975). However, Carpi himself was born only in 1940. He therefore has no direct testimony.

 

Pier Francesco Carpi was an Italian writer, essayist, novelist, screenwriter and director born on 16 January 1940 in Arceto di Scandiano, in Italy, and died on 26 June 2000. He is particularly known for his works dealing with esoteric, occult and prophetic themes, such as the said “The Prophecies of Pope John XXIII” (translated from the Italian Le profezie di papa Giovanni in 1978), where he claims to reveal apocalyptic visions attributed to Pope John XXIII, covering the history of humanity from 1935 to 2033.

 

1.3. Testimony of Franco Bellegrandi

 

He was an Italian historian, journalist and dignitary in the service of the Catholic Church. He served as chamberlain of honour of the sword and cape (an honorary title within the Pontifical Court) to Popes Pius XII and Paul VI, and he also contributed as a correspondent to the official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. Bellegrandi is particularly known for his work Nikitaroncalli: Controvita di un Papa (published in 1994), in which he exposes, as an eyewitness and insider of the Vatican behind-the-scenes, a scathing criticism of the life and action of Pope John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli), whom he accuses of having favoured the modernist infiltration within the Church, leading to the convocation of Vatican Council II. He mentions among other things documents discussed at the 1958 conclave proving the membership of Mgr. Roncalli in Freemasonry since the nunciature in Turkey (Nikitaroncalli, 1994).

 

1.4. Testimony of Gioele Magaldi

 

A figure of progressive Freemasonry, born in 1971. He is notably known for having founded the Masonic movement Grande Oriente Democratico (GOD) and for his work “Massoni, Società a responsabilità illimitata, La scoperta delle Ur-Lodges” (Chiaralettere editions, November 2014), in which he affirms that Roncalli belonged to four super-lodges: Ecclesia (n° 11), Ghedullah (n° 16), Ioannes (n° 20) and Montesquieu (n° 27), with affiliation to the degrees of Apprentice, Companion and Master.

 

2. Freemasonry as Formal Heresy

 

Membership in Freemasonry constitutes a formal heresy, because it implies adherence to doctrines contrary to the Catholic faith, such as religious indifferentism and naturalism.

 

It is condemned by the bull In Eminenti Apostolatus Specula of Clement XII (1738) and reaffirmed by Leo XIII in Humanum Genus (1884):

“The principles and maxims of the Masonic sect are diametrically opposed to Catholic doctrine.” (Original Latin edition).

 

The Code of Canon Law of 1917, canon 2335, declares:

“Those affiliated to Masonic sects or to other associations of the same kind which plot against the Church or legitimate civil powers contract ipso facto excommunication simply reserved to the Apostolic See.”

This latae sententiae excommunication separates ipso facto from the Church, rendering the individual incapable of exercising any ecclesiastical office.

 

3. Evaluation of the Credibility of the Witnesses

 

These testimonies, often coming from Masons themselves, do they constitute sufficient proof?

 

3.1. Analysis of the Testimony of Carlos Vazquez Rangel

 

A public declaration of 1993, reported in an interview in the magazine Proceso and taken up by Catholic traditionalist sites such as Foro Católico (13 April 2020), raises a serious question. He affirms there the existence of four Masonic lodges in the Vatican, as well as the simultaneous initiation of Popes John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli) and Paul VI (Giovanni Montini) in 1937 at the Grand Lodge of France, and the Masonic membership of figures such as Bishop Sergio Méndez Arceo.

These allegations, not supported by irrefutable documentary proofs, are often amplified by anti-modernist circles. But in the absence of independent confirmation – and given the secret nature of the lodges –, these statements are more a matter of personal opinion than of certain truth. They do not constitute proof of deliberate lying on the part of Vázquez Rangel, but they invite increased caution: a Masonic leader may be tempted to exaggerate to promote his obedience, without this invalidating the whole of his trajectory.

 

3.2. Analysis of the Testimony of Pier Carpi

 

He claims to reveal apocalyptic visions attributed to Pope John XXIII, covering the history of humanity from 1935 to 2033. This book “The Prophecies of Pope John XXIII”, which enjoyed a certain success in circles fond of mysteries, is however criticised for its ambiguous style and its lack of reliable historical sources, according to certain observers. Carpi also directed films such as Povero Cristo (1975) and La moglie del diavolo (Satan’s Wife, 1979), and worked as a comic book screenwriter.

 

His life and work are inscribed in a marked interest for the mysterious and secret societies, without direct link to authentic Catholic doctrine, which condemns such superstitious speculations as contrary to the faith (cf. Catechism of Trent, part I, chapter II, on false miracles and divinations).

 

3.3. Analysis of the Testimony of Franco Bellegrandi

 

His affirmations rest essentially on anecdotal testimonies, symbolic interpretations and rumours from internal Vaticanist circles, without irrefutable documentary proofs.

 

3.4. Analysis of the Testimony of Gioele Magaldi

 

Independent analyses, such as that of the blog Irregolare (28 November 2014), qualify his work as a “grand bluff” and disguised conspiracism, underlining the absence of solid proofs despite hundreds of pages. On forums such as Steemit (5 September 2017), his work is seen as a novelistic work rather than factual, comparable to a thriller rather than a rigorous investigation. Users on X (formerly Twitter), such as @JakTubal (23 February 2024 and 3 December 2022), compare him to Dan Brown, noting that his 50 pages of bibliographical references do not support his extravagant theses, serving rather to “drown the reader” with the true to pass off the false.

 

His media interventions, such as interviews on Affaritaliani.it or appearances on Border Nights (podcasts of 2014 and 2021), are often sensationalist, reinforcing the image of a promoter of ideas rather than an objective researcher.

 

4. General Principles of the Credibility of a Testimony

 

4.1. General Criteria

 

The Credibility of a Testimony rests essentially on the credibility of the witness, because the testimony is only a word reporting a fact.

 

To evaluate this credibility, one examines:

1. The sincerity of the witness: absence of motive for lying (personal interest, hatred, fear).
2. His competence: capacity to observe and remember correctly (mental health, distance, conditions).
3. His coherence: absence of internal contradictions or with established facts.
4. His corroboration: agreement with other reliable witnesses or objective proofs.

 

Without these qualities, the testimony loses all probative value, because an unreliable word proves nothing.

 

4.2. Specific Credibility: that of a Testimony Coming from a Freemason

 

And speaking… of a pope accusing him of an unheard-of crime: indeed never in the two-thousand-year history of the Church has there been a heretical pope according to Vatican Council I

 

The credibility of a Freemason who testifies that a pope is a Freemason is null, for the following reasons, exposed with clarity:

 

4.2.1. Lack of sincerity: Freemasons are bound by secret and lying oaths, sworn enemies of the Catholic Church (infallibly condemned by the Magisterium prior to 1963, notably by Humanum Genus of Leo XIII, 20 April 1884). Their testimony often aims to deceive or defame. And to bring down a pope is obviously the summit for a Freemason.

 

The document, taken from the “Permanent Instruction of the Haute Vente” – Alta Vendita, the highest directing instance of the Italian Carboneria, a revolutionary secret society of the 19th century, closely linked to continental Freemasonry -, published in 1859 at the request of Pope Pius IX, and provided in the edition of Jacques Crétineau-Joly, “The Roman Church in the Face of the Revolution”, 1859, exposes with diabolical clarity the Masonic strategy: thus, to destroy Catholicism, it is necessary to destroy the Pope.

 

4.2.2. Moral incompetence: As members of a heretical and conspiratorial sect, they have neither the probity nor the objectivity required to report the truth about the Church.

 

4.2.3. Habitual incoherence: Their affirmations on other verified subjects are contradictory with facts established by reliable Catholic sources and lack objective proofs.

 

4.2.4. Absence of legitimate corroboration: Such a testimony can only be confirmed by other pure Catholic sources, not by accomplices of the sect.

 

4.2.5. Machiavellianism: the members of these sects reserve the right to lie for a “greater good” (Masonic principle of relativistic esotericism), rendering their affirmations subject to caution:

 

– As Leo XIII warns in Humanum Genus (1884):

“… the seductions and ruses of the apostles of lying….of the perfidious and varied artifices with the aid of which their proselytes seek to ensnare men…”

 

– Clement XII, In eminenti (1738) formally declares that Masonic societies are founded on secret, illicit oaths, artifices and deceptions. Therefore their testimony is not reliable, on the contrary, one must distrust it boldly.

 

– Canon 1939 §1 of the 1917 Code. If the delict is neither notorious nor absolutely certain, but results from public rumour, denunciation or any other source, a special inquiry must precede in order to establish if the imputation has a foundation and which one.

 

Consequently, an individual is never declared nor treated as a heretic without public, notorious and certain proof.

 

A testimony coming from a declared enemy of the Church proves nothing; it is intrinsically suspect and must be rejected as false until certain proof of the contrary by irreproachable Catholic witnesses.

 

5. Remarkable Absence in the Pecorelli List and a strange mention with Don Luigi Villa

 

5.1. The Pecorelli List

 

Mgr A.G. Roncalli does not appear in the “Pecorelli list”, which gives all the important Masonic prelates of the mid-20th century.

 

This list, published on 12 September 1976 in the magazine L’Osservatore Politico by the Italian journalist Carmine Pecorelli (himself a member of the lodge Propaganda Due), enumerates high prelates and Vatican officials accused of belonging to Freemasonry, with their dates of initiation, code numbers and pseudonyms. It targets mainly the years 1960-1970, under the reign of the alleged Paul VI.

 

According to the provisional “Excel” compilation provided by the International Committee Rore Sanctifica (based on Pecorelli’s original publication), and confirmed by analyses such as that of Carlo Alberto Agnoli in Freemasonry in the Conquest of the Church (1996, p. 17-18), Roncalli does not appear there. This list, although criticised for its partiality (Pecorelli being a Freemason), possesses a general reliability recognised by Catholic investigators such as Agnoli, who note his absence of names like that of Roncalli, who died in 1963.

 

5.2. Don Luigi Villa

 

Don Luigi Villa (1918-2012) was an Italian Catholic priest, ordained in 1942, missionary with the Combonians, founder of the institute Operaie di Maria Immacolata and director of the magazine Chiesa Viva. Mandated by Pius XII and Padre Pio, he unmasked the Masonic infiltration in the Church, defending the Catholic Tradition against post-conciliar errors.

 

Don Luigi Villa writes in his book on “Paul VI… blessed?”:

 

“..confirmation was had during another Congress, promoted by the ‘J. Maritain’ Institute, in the Marches, on the theme: ‘How did we arrive at Vatican II?’. In the name of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Mgr. Ruini, then Secretary, was present at the ‘Congress’. Well, ‘The theme – wrote Baldoni – focused especially on the figure of Pope Roncalli and on the opening to the world, on the fact that this exceptional pope wanted to look out the window“.

But Mgr. Capovilla revealed – for the first time! – that he had seen the Pontiff’s face furrowed with tears, shortly before dying, because some affirmed that he had set in motion a process that would not be the good of the Church!. These ‘tears’ of Pope Roncalli demonstrate that he had not at all foreseen the negative effects of his decisions, of his apostolic gestures (!!) accomplished without interpellating either his Secretary of State, Card. Tardini, or the other cardinals responsible for the different competent Congregations, in particular that of the Holy Office, while he listened preferably to his prophet-counsellor, his factious personal secretary, Mgr. Capovilla, to the point that Card. Tardini came to ask to be able to abandon his post, and Card. Siri, then Secretary of the Ital. Episc. Conf., protested to the pope against this unusual encroachment and this inconsiderate way of acting of Mgr. Capovilla, but without result!”

 

6. Absence of Irrefutable External Proof and Thomistic Principles

 

Without irrefutable external proof (eyewitness testimonies, authentic documents verified by the Church), one applies the Thomistic principle of not claiming what exceeds certain reason. A suspect is presumed innocent until certain proof, according to a universal principle of all law.

 

Thus the Canon Law:

Canon 1748 Ҥ2. Actore non probante, reus absolvitur.

“§2. If the plaintiff does not prove, the defendant is absolved.”

 

Finally: “De mortuis nihil nisi certum”

 

“Of the dead, one must say only what is certain”: the Church never judges the dead on the basis of rumours, still less on the testimonies of enemies or condemned societies.

 

7. First Conclusion

 

The initiation of Angelo Roncalli into Freemasonry is not demonstrated by certain historical facts independent of any sectarian, indicative or hearsay source.

 

According to the apostolic teaching of Saint Paul – 1 Tim. 5, 19: “Against a priest (all the more a pope), do not accept an accusation, except on the deposition of two or three witnesses” -, no concordant chain of primary proofs published and verifiable, coming from Catholic prelates faithful to traditional doctrine and accessible ecclesiastical archives, confirms these allegiances of Roncalli in Turkey and elsewhere.

 

The absence of formal and public accusation by Pius XII, who discreetly monitored diplomatic compromises, as well as the non-existence of published original documents demonstrating a certain initiation, indicate that this affiliation is a matter of uncertain opinion and not of sure teaching. The blessed Pius XII named Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli patriarch of Venice on 5 March 1953 (pontifical bull of 15 January 1953, published in the month of March). He was consecrated bishop and installed in Venice on 19 March 1953. Pius XII died on 9 October 1958. At that date, Mgr Roncalli was still titular patriarch of Venice and cardinal-priest at the title of Santa Prisca.

 

Catholics attached to doctrinal truth must reject unfounded conjectures and hold firmly to the immutable faith, without any compromise with rumours.

 

In conclusion, John XXIII, accepted by peaceful universal acceptance but acting as semi-heretical without formal public heresy during his entire life, exercised his office validly.

The Masonic allegations, doubtful, cannot infirm that.

 

8. The Widely Spread Opinion: John XXIII was heretical and therefore not pope.

 

However, we note that a great number of Catholics (sedevacantists) consider the testimonies and indications of Roncalli’s membership in Freemasonry as reliable, and the other indications – all that together – sufficient as proof of his state of heretic.

 

We must therefore conclude out of respect for the opinion of our confreres, to accept that this question is not resolved, that our convictions are in the meantime only opinions.

 

For this principle obliges us all:

 

“In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas”

 

In theology the adage becomes:

 

“In fide unitas, in opiniis libertas, in omnibus caritas.”

 

Here is the explanatory translation:

 

“In the necessary things of the Faith, one must keep unity among us;

 

In opinions, one has liberty;

 

In all, one must keep charity, and not treat as heretic him who holds another

 

opinion than ours or yours.”

 

We will develop this adage in a following chapter.

 

9. Final Conclusion

 

We await one or more absolutely probative proofs, leaving no doubt, which will convince all.

 

Probably at the latest, a future pope will be able to decide definitively, having access to the Vatican archives.

 

May divine Providence keep us in the immutable Catholic truth.

 

Note:

 

Since in the sedevacantist world several confreres, including a certain number of bishops and priests, hold an opinion different from mine, I accept and apply the adage “in fide unitas, in opiniis libertas, in omnibus caritas”.

 

Since they are quite numerous, one must take into account with an “extrinsic evidence” in their favour, although the force of the arguments that I employ in the text above seems to give it the value of an “intrinsic evidence”. In any case I submit in advance to any decision of the Church in this matter.