Archbishop Annibale Bugnini and Reform of the Liturgy

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Spyridon

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I’m seeking (name removed by moderator)ut from my CAFamily about something which I’ve been thinking of recently. The much hated (or lauded, depending on who’s viewpoint we speak of) Archbishop Annibale Bugnini.

In case anyone doesn’t know this name, if you’re a Roman Catholic you really should. This man was the mind, the architect, the creator and the overseer both of the Vatican II Commission on the Liturgy, the author of the Vatican II Constitution on the Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC), and the Secretary (overseer, coordinator and architect) of the Consilium formed to implement SC.

Open up any volume of the Liturgy of the Hours, and you see a Decree from the Sacred Congregation of Divine Worship about the LOTH - and one of only two signatures stamped at the bottom (neither of which is Paul VI) is Annibale Bugnini.

Open up any volume of the Roman Missal, and you get another decree, and who’s name is at the bottom? Annibale Bugnini.

This one mans influence on the Liturgy was greater than the entire Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI combined. In all honesty, the Pauline Mass is a bit of a misnomer - it would be more accurate to call it the Annibalian Mass, for it was the fruit of decades of Bugnini’s labor.

Bugnini’s influence on the OF Roman Rite cannot be overstated. The entire Liturgy truly is his. This isn’t opinion - it’s objective fact.

I’ve heard all the polemics and accusations against the Archbishop, and I won’t repeat them here because I’m not looking for that side of the argument. I’ve studied it and understand it well.

What I want here are some “Bugnini apologetics” - I want to understand the mind of the Architect of the most widespread Rite in all of Christendom.

His tome on the Liturgy “Reform of the Liturgy” is hundreds of dollars online and I wasn’t able to find it at my local library, however I will be going in the near future to the Benedictine Abbey Library and I’m sure I’ll find it there.

But until then, I’d like (name removed by moderator)ut from people who know about the man and his works and can help me out.

Does anybody here actually like poor Annibale? Almost everything I’ve read of him on CAF has been overwhelmingly negative…

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Bugnini with Bl. Paul VI.

For full disclosure, personally I prefer the OF of the Roman Rite over the EF - at least how both usages stand right now. So I have nothing against Bugnini. And although he was the main man behind it, he wasn’t the only person. He was the key figure, but many hundreds of others were involved, including all the Council Fathers of VII and Bl. Paul VI himself.

Paging @FrDavid96 & @OraLabora …
 
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I’m less familiar with the reform of the Missal, though the book you speak of is available at our abbey’s library and I’ve looked it over but haven’t had the time to read it all.

I am more familiar with the reform of the breviary. My take is that while he led the consilium that developed the reform, and his influence is certainly very significant, not all the ideas were his and the final product was the effort of many including many communities that tested some of the changes. It was a somewhat democratic process, and it certainly achieved its goal of a lighter office for the diocesan clergy (which many religious adopted as well though they often add two canonical hours using the complementary psalter) that had as bonus making it most accessible to the laity. Is it perfect? No. I find that the NT canticle at Vespers does not lend itself well to choral chant, they are too syncopated.

Moreover, some of the changes, such as removing the imprecatory psalms and verses, while not necessarily his idea, were strongly endorsed by Blessed Paul VI.

Read: “From Breviary to Liturgy of the Hours” by Stanislaus Campbell.
 
Thanks for your most wise (name removed by moderator)ut @OraLabora. An Israelite indeed!
 
Spyridon said:
His tome on the Liturgy “Reform of the Liturgy” is hundreds of dollars online
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Someone would do a great service by publishing an affordable reprint. I would love to know what he actually wrote.
 
https://www.ewtn.com/library/LITURGY/SPRLIT.TXT
“Spirit of the Liturgy” by Roman Guardini
This might be one of the documents most responsible for the underlying philosophy of the reforms.
Many people completely misunderstand his writings here as left wing progressive. He is anything but that.
In fact, Guardini is definitively Catholic in that his thinking is both/and. Looking forward and respecting Tradition.

In any case, if one wants to understand the thinking behind all this, his book would be a good place to start.
 
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goout said:
In fact, Guardini is definitively Catholic in that his thinking is both/and. Looking forward and respecting Tradition.

In any case, if one wants to understand the thinking behind all this, his book would be a good place to start.
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I already have an understanding on the Liturgical Movement.

What I’m really seeking is an understanding of Bugnini himself.

Servant of God Romano Guardini wasn’t even 5% as influential on the Liturgical Reforms as Bugnini. Bugnini was a 10 ft tall giant in the reform - Guardini was a 3 ft tall midget.
 
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Whenever people disagree with a change, there is a tendency to focus extremely on one person. People tend to believe if they can p(name removed by moderator)oint just one person REALLY made almost all the decisions, that discredits it somewhat. Now we can call the OF the “Bugnini Mass”, and distance ourselves from it.

Furthermore, people think they can “prove” that if a pope relied heavily on one adviser for a document, that means we can discredit the document if we can discredit the adviser. And you can always find reason to discredit ANY adviser.

Of course, just because an adviser might have had reasons for taking certain actions, we jump to the conclusion that he had an AGENDA. But we never consider that we, ourselves have reasons for our actions too; thus, that we have an agenda; that the websites we rely on have an agenda.

The assumption is that older papal documents that we cite to refute Bugnini, etc, apparently were written with (name removed by moderator)ut by advisers who we do not know, so therefore they are more authoritative than documents written by recent popes, whose advisers we do know, or think we know.
 
commenter said:
Whenever people disagree with a change, there is a tendency to focus extremely on one person. People tend to believe if they can p(name removed by moderator)oint just one person REALLY made almost all the decisions, that discredits it somewhat. Now we can call the OF the “Bugnini Mass”, and distance ourselves from it.
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If you read my post, you’d know I’m not saying things to discredit him. Please go read everything I wrote again.

And I’m not stating some mere polemical opinion - it is an objective historical fact that Annibale Bugnini was the #1 most important figure in the Reforms of the Liturgy which culminated with the OF Roman Rite.

Can you name a single person who was more influential than him? Or even as influential as him? You do realize Bugnini played a much larger part than the Pope himself in actually carrying out the reforms and doing the reforming work, right?

I don’t deny other people were involved in the reforms. But I do deny that anyone else was as influential or more than him. Which is why I say it may be more accurate to call the OF Mass the Annibalian Mass instead of the Pauline.
 
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I have known liberals who would discount every encyclical they disagreed with, saying it was Really written by some adviser with an agenda. This way they can throw out all of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius 10, 11, 12 etc. Not Really written by the Pope or Trent father’s but some murky bureaucrat.

Then they discount half the New Testament, saying this or that verse was not really written by Mathew, but by an adviser. With an agenda. So if you disagree you can safely ignore it.
 
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Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange_ is listed by Wikipedia as the dominant influence on the crucial encyclical attributed to Pius 12, Humani Generis. Since we know, as per the Wikipedia magisterium, the name of one powerful influence, therefor we can now discount the parts of this influential document we disagree with.

See where this logic leads?
 
commenter said:
See where this logic leads?
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No, and your comments have been most unhelpful.

I ask you again to go back and reread my OP.

I will have to start flagging your posts as off topic if you can’t respect the OP.
 
It’s interesting that he ended his career as Nuncio to Iran. Quite a change of pace from architect of the reform of the Roman Rite Liturgy.
 
No question, it wasn’t a promotion, and it wasn’t a normal career move. There are Bugnini apologists who try to argue it was all business as usual…but that’s laughable.
 
KMG said:
No question, it wasn’t a promotion, and it wasn’t a normal career move. There are Bugnini apologists who try to argue it was all business as usual…but that’s laughable.
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Please no anti-Bugnini polemics, that’s way off topic.

I WANT those Bugnini apologists to comment here…

I’m trying to understand the man and his reasoning.
 
Read his book. Don’t trust his apologists. Just read his book. Then read Father Bouyer’s book, who worked with the man…and famously called him as “devoid of learning as he was of honesty.”
 
KMG said:
Read his book. Don’t trust his apologists. Just read his book. Then read Father Bouyer’s book, who worked with the man…and famously called him as “devoid of learning as he was of honesty.”
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I plan to read both in the near future.

I’ve heard of people who start reading his book and get so disgusted with it they can’t finish…

But I’ve also heard of people who say it’s great.
 
Something a lot of people don’t know about Bugnini -

He wanted to “reform” the Most Holy Rosary…

But Bl. Paul VI shut him down on the idea saying "the faithful would conclude that ‘the Pope has changed the Rosary,’ and the psychological effect would be disastrous…” "


Honestly, the only articles I can find about him online are intensely negative… I’ve yet to come across a single “Bugnini apologetic” article… Which is what I’m seeking.
 
Hey @OraLabora are you familiar at all with the Quinones Breviary?

It seems in the 16th century there was a Breviary, approved by the Pope and becoming hugely popular, which was very similar to and seems to be a direct precursor to our current OF Office.

https://pwitness.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F107565774497

Fr Robert Taft seems to have a great appreciation of both the OF Roman Mass and Office, which means a LOT to me. From what I can tell, he’s pretty much the greatest Liturgical scholar in the Church today (well, maybe behind Papa Benedict).
 
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But the documents concerning social justice and the writings of V2… taking those away from them will not end well.
 
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