I've noted before that my reading of John XXIII's Journal of a Soul shows him to be a perfectly orthodox pope, to the contrary of claims of "radical traditionalists" and Catholic "progressives" alike. One of the very interesting things was when John was beatified a few years ago with Pius IX, many Catholic progressives were horrified. How could the architect of Vatican II be paired with that neanderthal who hated all liberalism. Herewith from the diary of John XXIII during his 1959 retreat in the Vatican:
I always think of Pius IX of sacred and glorious memory and, by imitating him in his sufferings, I would like to be worthy to celebrate his canonization. (p. 299)
While he wasn't able to celebrate it, it may be the case that Good Pope John will be canonized with Pius IX, "of sacred and glorious memory."
Indeed, Pope John was already aware of those trying to manipulate him and his image into something that it was most definitely not. From his August 13, 1961 journal during a retreat:
I must beware of the audacity of those who, with unseeing minds led astray by secret pride, presume to do good without having been called to do so by God speaking through his Church, as if the divine Redeemer had any need of their worthless co-operation, or indeed of any man's. (p. 310)
Pope John's own disposition toward Church authority had never wavered. There was no contradiction between obedience and conscience, since he saw the Christian faith as Newman did, a spiritual army with discipline that was needed to make a Christian fit to serve and use prudence in the first place. Pope John recorded this disposition in his 1954 Spiritual Testament:
I wish to profess once more my complete Christian and Catholic faith, belonging and submitting as I do to the holy, apostolic and Roman Church, and my perfect devotion and obedience to its august head, the supreme Pontiff, . . . . (p. 342).