Dear Parishioners,

We saw last week that a grave mistake was made by the researchers, and a strong argument could be made that it was a willing mistake. Heading up the mistaken liturgists was a man named Annibale Bugnini. He was considered one of the great liturgical experts at the time of Vatican II. So, Pope St. John XXIII put him in charge of the committee that was supposed to take the decisions of the council fathers concerning the reform of the liturgy, and make it practical— actually re-write the rubrics and instructions where necessary in the Roman Missal to enact the reforms. From the beginning it became obvious to Pope John that they had no intention of following the council, but had their own agenda. He removed Msgr. Bugnini from the committee. After his death, for some unknown reason, the new Pope, Blessed Paul VI, restored him to his position. Msgr. Bugnini’s committee functioned as an appendage of the Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments. All of the Roman Dicasteries have a small full-time working staff and a larger plenary (full) consultative body. The plenary consists of 60-100 Bishops from different areas of the world who have some expertise in the workings of the dicasteries they are chosen to participate in. By 1967, Bugnini and his committee had a rough draft of the new Roman Missal as they wished to present it. The plenary of the dicastery was called to Rome and asked to go over the draft and observe the mock celebration of the “reformed mass”. All but three rejected it totally and the other three had strong reservations. Cardinal Ottaviani was scandalized by it and called together a group of highly respected theologian liturgists who wrote a scathing critique of it published in 1969. So in 1968, Bugnini called the plenary back to Rome to review his “new” draft of the reform. It was exactly the same as the one the year before. He was gambling that if the Bishops saw no changes, they would assume the Pope had rejected their interventions and wanted the reform as Bugnini was presenting
(to be continued)