The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975∫, Annibale Bugnini, Titular Archbishop of Diocletiana, who in 934 translated pages reported greater damage to the Catholic Church than Diocletian, who had persecuted the Church into the longest papal interregnum before the twentieth century.
Bugnini wrote this infamous record, just as though he had some right or competence in deformation of the liturgy, in an overblown hagiographical style highly unsuitable to its coprological content.
Early he attributed to Cardinal Lercaro a “transparent soul.” He may have meant “translucent”; some things suffer in translation. He made it quite clear that he often appealed to the “authority” of Paul VI, who had appointed him to his own prestigious position. He even dropped the name of Knox, arguably Australia’s stupidest prelate, who headed his Congregation in its quest for episcopal approval of the new “mass.”
Page 88: “The Congregation for Divine Worship was continually accused of causing the evils … afflicting the Church, of fostering a lack of discipline, of yielding to arrogant pressures …, and of [inability to] put down abuses. There were points at which these outbursts of anger became rather violent: translations, … communion in the hand, … Eucharistic Prayers. The Congregation was forced continually to justify its actions.” [Justification is needed only for innovation.]
He filled another ten pages with denials that his useless, unnecessary, but imposed, invalidating innovations had emptied the churches. The “pope” saw it his way; experiments continued. But no one considered return to the system that had worked for nineteen centuries.
The message that emerges from pp. 99-113 on the terrible confusion caused by introduction of the vernaculars to the Mass is that it was deliberate. There were any number of accurate translations in available bi-lingual Missals, but not one of them satisfied either the Congregation or the Episcopal Conferences, both in themselves useless novelties. No one has yet improved on columnist Bob Considine’s requirement that our translations should have been done by some one who understood Latin and English.
Pp. 114-122 detail the acme of confusion to both text and rubrics of the Missal, to the point where two books replaced the Traditional Missal, incorporating so many changes that only a few realized that some of them had invalidated the Mass, leaving the worshippers in full possession of idolatry.
By this time priests were leaving their assignments in thousands. Just to ensure that the deserted worshippers would have even less opportunities to worship, and to keep themselves employed, Bugnini & Company introduced concelebration, for which exists no possible excuse.
Pp. 277-301 grossly misrepresent the Catholic “Opposition.” Bugnini ferociously assaults our methods, our disloyalty to unprecedented innovation, our accusations of heresy against him and his boss, our misguided preference for traditional and defined doctrine and worship, our disobedience to incompetent authority and the heretics who have usurped all offices in the formerly Catholic Church, our unreasoned anger at being robbed of our ordinary means of salvation, and uses every possible weapon against us except direct and rational replies to our complaints and accusations. On page 292 he quoted what Cardinal Ottaviani supposedly had said, then criticized Ottaviani’s inconsistency in what he had supposed Ottaviani had said. At no point had Bugnini admitted that his entire effort toward a new form of worship violated the liturgical law of the Church as promulgated when it became necessary in the face of the Protestant revolt to guarantee our Holy Mass for all time against all heedless change, and to privilege all priests forever to its exclusive use. Nevertheless, Bugnini’s group and the incompetent papal “authority” behind it forbade what everyone in the world acknowledged as official Catholic worship. Bugnini ended this chapter: “Ordinaries cannot grant permission to use the old Missal in Masses with a congregation. Under no pretext can this be allowed. The notification represented a further clarification, but it did not suffice to do away with the difficulties. Some found ways of splitting hairs over it; others considered it an act of persecution. Documents, no matter how solemn, are ineffective against bad faith. People will find all kinds of justifications to defend their actions against those in authority.” [Talk about hanging oneself!]
Next came changes in the Calendar (pp.305-326), the Litany of Saints (327-330), and the Commons. Embedded in The Order of Mass is a detailed account of the only showing of the novus ordo missae to bishops on whom it would be saddled, October 24, 1967. It finished: “… experiment was not a success and even that it had an effect contrary to the one intended and played a part in the negative vote that followed. Few of the Fathers were disposed and ready for the experiment; … The majority … entered the Sistine Chapel with their minds made up and ill-disposed to the new Mass.” [Normal enough attitude!]
Pp. 491-570 record the massacre of the Breviary.
Certain dioceses and religious communities have had their own variations on the Latin rite. There existed a real danger that a true Mass might survive, but Bugnini & Co. plugged this loophole effectively (pp.571-576).
Pp. 579-723 cover man-made substitutes for Sacraments. Absurdities warrant no emergency reports; we can discuss such matters at any time, hopefully in the coming year.
This volume provides an insight, though not too clear, into the lengths and methods that can be explored in efforts to remain on the payroll. It is essentially one man’s monument to himself and his lifetime of useless achievement. It was almost necessary that he himself would write it. No one else could have cared. He succeeded admirably in carrying out the last full measure of devoted hatred for us all.
It is hardly a matter of wonder that a man who had so destroyed himself and was then deprived of the kudos accruing to his monstrous deeds should have hanged himself.