Was Bugnini really an enemy of the Church?

[Neil_Anthony]

More dodging. Did you read the article or not? It’s a simple yes or no question.

A few months ago I read an article with that quote, and researched the quote, and found out that it was not really something that Archbishop Bugnini had said. I wasted a lot of time worrying that the Church had come under the power of the masons.

I’m trying to save other people the time I wasted. Most people will look at the credibility of the source before listening to that source. If the first thing on the page is a false quote, many people will not bother to read the rest of the page. It’s for those people that I’m telling them what I found through my research.

Critics falsely attribute to Annibale Bugnini, secretary of the body that Pope Paul VI set up to implement the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the liturgy, the statement: “We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren, that is for the Protestants”, and claim that this was published on L’Osservatore Romano of 19 March 1965.

The bad-faith attribution to Father Bugnini of these words is evident, when they are compared with what he actually wrote on that issue of L’Osservatore Romano: “Love of souls and the desire to facilitate in every way, by removing anything that could even remotely be an impediment or make them feel ill at ease, the road to union on the part of separated brethren, has induced the Church to make even these painful sacrifices” (page 6, column 4).

The sacrifices that Father Bugnini felt were painful to make concerned some familiar words omitted from one particular prayer in the Good Friday liturgy. This prayer, previously titled “For the unity of the Church”, is now headed “For the unity of Christians” (the Church is always one). Instead of “heretics” and “schismatics”, it now speaks of “all our brethren who believe in Jesus Christ” and asks “that God may gather and keep together in his one Church all those who seek the truth in sincerity.”

 

[CradleCath]

**“We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren, that is for the Protestants”, **and claim that this was published on L’Osservatore Romano of 19 March 1965.

The bad-faith attribution to Father Bugnini of these words is evident, when they are compared with what he actually wrote on that issue of L’Osservatore Romano: “Love of souls and the desire to facilitate in every way,** by removing anything that could even remotely be an impediment or make them feel ill at ease, the road to union on the part of separated brethren**, has induced the Church to make even these painful sacrifices” (page 6, column 4).

These two quotes say exactly the same thing…that Annibale Bugnini said ANYTHING that caused Protestants & other non-Catholics to be “uncomfortable” & thus to possibly remain separate from the Roman Catholic faith…must be removed from the Mass. This resulted in the loss of:

**Latin…the language of the Church
**Communion rails
**“overly pious” acts…kneeling for reception of the Eucharist received on the tongue, the “little cross” made on the head, heart & lips, etc., etc.
**Confessionals…after all, Catholics didn’t go to “confession” anymore…they just “talked with” a priest in the reconciliation room.
**The abolishment of long fasts before receiving the Eucharist.
**It resulted in the addition of: the doxology :“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever” at the end of the Lord’s Prayer and these are only some examples of the Protestantizing of the Mass.

This Protestantizing spread until the Rosary was no longer seen in Catholic hands, Novenas disappeared, as did our Sacred art & music. A whole culture disappeared seemingly over night…all, in favor of a ecumenicism that hasn’t materialized.

I have one question: Why would we try to convert people into a Catholic Church that isn’t really Catholic?

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

These two quotes say exactly the same thing…

I agree that they say substantially the same thing.

 

[buffalo]

These two quotes say exactly the same thing…that Annibale Bugnini said ANYTHING that caused Protestants & other non-Catholics to be “uncomfortable” & thus to possibly remain separate from the Roman Catholic faith…must be removed from the Mass. This resulted in the loss of:

**Latin…the language of the Church
**Communion rails
**“overly pious” acts…kneeling for reception of the Eucharist received on the tongue, the “little cross” made on the head, heart & lips, etc., etc.
**Confessionals…after all, Catholics didn’t go to “confession” anymore…they just “talked with” a priest in the reconciliation room.
**The abolishment of long fasts before receiving the Eucharist.
**It resulted in the addition of: the doxology :“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever” at the end of the Lord’s Prayer and these are only some examples of the Protestantizing of the Mass.

This Protestantizing spread until the Rosary was no longer seen in Catholic hands, Novenas disappeared, as did our Sacred art & music. A whole culture disappeared seemingly over night…all, in favor of a ecumenicism that hasn’t materialized.

I have one question: Why would we try to convert people into a Catholic Church that isn’t really Catholic?

So the Protestants didn’t convert and Catholics dropped out. You will know them by their fruits.

 

[CradleCath]

So the Protestants didn’t convert and Catholics dropped out. You will know them by their fruits.

And sometimes I think that the Protestants who did convert were terribly cheated by not having the Mass of the Ages to attend, as I think it would have awakened in them the desire to learn the whole of Catholicism. Surely, the Roman Canon alone would have had them rushing to search out the beginnings of the Church they had just joined.

Even as a child in Catholic elementary, the words of this prayer interested me. Who in the world were those guys named Cletus & Linus. I had read all about the apostles, but them??? Linus?? (this was about the time that the Peanuts comic strip appeared in the Saturday Evening Post…but I knew that the Linus there had no connection to the one in the Roman Canon .
The prayer that led me, at such a young age to study the names & lives of our first popes reads as follows:

“Communicantes, et memoriam venerantes, in primis gloriosae semper Virginis Mariae, Genetricis Dei et Domini nostri Jesu Christi: sed et beati Ioseph, eiusdem Virginis Sponsi, et beatorum Apostolorum ac Martyrum tuorum, Petri et Pauli, Andreae, (Iacobi, Ioannis, Thomae, Iacobi, Philippi, Bartholomaei, Matthaei, Simonis et Thaddaei: Lini, Cleti, Clementis, Xysti, Cornelii, Cypriani, Laurentii, Chrysogoni, Ioannis et Pauli, Cosmae et Damiani) et omnium Sanctorum tuorum; quorum meritis precibusque concedas, ut in omnibus protectionis tuae muniamur auxilio. (Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.)”

English translation"

(In union with and venerating the memory of, in the first place, the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, but also blessed Joseph, spouse of the same Virgin, and your blessed Apostles and Martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew, James and John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Jude: Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian, and all your Saints, by whose merits and prayers grant that we may in all things be fortified by the aid of your protection. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Cletus, particularly interested me. Not too much is known about him. He was the second successor of St. Peter & governed the Roman Church from about 76 to about 88 according to “Liber Pontificalis” (the fourth century list of popes) Cletus was a Roman by birth, and belonged to the quarter known as the Vicus Patrici. I believe that it was him who instituted the Episcopacy, but I could be wrong. I do know that he was credited with ordaining 25 Catholic priests , …that figure always amazes me, that the Church was ever that small. He was martyred for the faith.

I believe that the Roman Canon, could our last 40+ years of converts have known it, would have awakened their curiousity about the beginnings of our Church. In this age of the computer it is so easy to satisfy this curiousity. But, of course, they were deprived of that. I have not heard the Eucharistic Prayer #1 (a supposed substitute for the Roman Canon, though much of that was also “made an option” by Bugnini) in over 4 decades

 

[GerardP]

A few months ago I read an article with that quote, and researched the quote, and found out that it was not really something that Archbishop Bugnini had said. I wasted a lot of time worrying that the Church had come under the power of the masons.

I’m trying to save other people the time I wasted. Most people will look at the credibility of the source before listening to that source. If the first thing on the page is a false quote, many people will not bother to read the rest of the page. It’s for those people that I’m telling them what I found through my research.

You keep saying you did “research.” I don’t think you did. I think you read a spin doctor’s take on it, designed to mislead people about Bugnini’s intentions. I’ve only found one source online and it sources Wikipedia. Not exactly reliable in all cases.

Read Leo XIII on Freemasonry and know that the Church is a true enemy of Freemasonry. It would be foolish to think they aren’t trying to infiltrate the Church. Cardinal Rampolla was almost elected Pope before it was found out he had masonic connections.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I agree that they say substantially the same thing.

The huge difference between the two quotes is that in the real quote, Bugnini is saying that we are making one specific sacrifice by changing the Good Friday prayer for non-Catholic Christians, in order to remove a stumbling block for protestants.

The fake quote has Bugnini going on a rampage removing everything that protestants disagree with from the mass.

If the real quote was as terrible as you guys say it is, then there would be no need for you to alter it and remove it from context.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

This is interesting but unfortunately I don’t have the book in front of me to confirm that it actually says these things. There are a couple of reasons I would like to see the actual book

1. Why is Bugnini referring to himself in the third person? It doesn’t seem to make sense. Makes me think something fishy is going on.
2. Conspiracy theorists tend to play fast and loose with the truth, altering quotes when convenient and taking things out of context as a matter of course. So I can’t just take your quote at face value unfortunately.

Is the whole book available online?

Here’s the quote from his autobiography, and another from Fr. Harrison.

**Annibali Bugnini: **"What were the reasons that led the Pope to such a drastic decision, which no one expected and which lay so heavily on the Church? I said in the preface to this book that I myself never knew any of these reasons for sure, even though, understandably in the distress of the moment, I knocked on many doors at all levels . . . There were those who ascribed the change to the “authoritarian,” “almost dictatorial” way in which the secretary of the congregation supposedly managed the agency, not allowing freedom of movement to his own co-workers and limiting the role even of the cardinal prefects. But when all is said and done, all this seems to be the stuff of ordinary administrative life. There must have been something more earthshaking. Toward the end of the summer a cardinal who was usually no enthusiast for the liturgical reform told me of the existence of a “dossier” which he had seen on (or brought to?) the Pope’s desk and which proved that Archbishop Bugnini was a Freemason. [Bugnini, p. 91.]

According to Malachi Martin, who worked in Rome at the time, Bugnini left his brief case in a conference room. When the person who found it opened it up to try and find out who it belonged to, they discovered documents that revealed Bugnini’s little secret. This is what Fr, Harrison wrote.

**Fr. Harrison: **“On the other hand, I know that there are high-ranking Vatican officials, including at least one former Cardinal Prefect of a Roman Congregation, who believe that there have been and are Freemasons in high Vatican positions. I confess my own amazement when I came to realise that such ideas (whether true or false) do not originate solely amongst “crackpot” conspiracy-theorists. Indeed it is quite widely held in Rome that the Masons themselves were responsible for circulating the absurdly long list of alleged Vatican Lodge members in 1976, precisely in order to make the whole idea look ridiculous, thereby protecting the few prelates who really were Masons. An internationally known churchman of unimpeachable integrity has also told me that he heard the account of the discovery of the evidence against Bugnini directly from the Roman priest who found it in a briefcase which Bugnini had inadvertently left in a Vatican conference room after a meeting”.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

You keep saying you did “research.” I don’t think you did. I think you read a spin doctor’s take on it, designed to mislead people about Bugnini’s intentions. I’ve only found one source online and it sources Wikipedia. Not exactly reliable in all cases.

Read Leo XIII on Freemasonry and know that the Church is a true enemy of Freemasonry. It would be foolish to think they aren’t trying to infiltrate the Church. Cardinal Rampolla was almost elected Pope before it was found out he had masonic connections.

I did tons of research, even to the point of getting a 1962 missal and learning it well enough to attend Latin mass quite a few times to see what the ‘masons’ had done to the mass. The crazy accusations just didn’t make any sense when you compare the missals side by side. There were changes made to the mass… but to accuse masons of infiltrating the church and orchestrating it to ‘destroy the Roman rite’? sigh

 

[ProVobis]

1. Why is Bugnini referring to himself in the third person? It doesn’t seem to make sense. Makes me think something fishy is going on.

Why fishy? I’ve seen lots of resumes and other effective self-promoting documents written in the third person.

1. Conspiracy theorists tend to play fast and loose with the truth, altering quotes when convenient and taking things out of context as a matter of course.

You’re saying that perhaps someone other than Bugnini wrote his autobiography and then you’re accusing traditionalists of being conspiracy theorists? But be hopeful, they’ve actually found the magic bullet theory to be actually possible. -]Smiley/-].

 

[AlexV]

Bugnini FREQUENTLY refers to himself in the third person in his liturgy memoirs. Egotists often do.

 

[GerardP]

I did tons of research, even to the point of getting a 1962 missal and learning it well enough to attend Latin mass quite a few times to see what the ‘masons’ had done to the mass. The crazy accusations just didn’t make any sense when you compare the missals side by side. There were changes made to the mass… but to accuse masons of infiltrating the church and orchestrating it to ‘destroy the Roman rite’? sigh

Interesting. I first went to the TLM expecting to see more similarities. I was stunned by just how much had been changed. I then actually read the mass and couldn’t believe how much richer the prayers were, which automatically implied the impoverishment of the prayers in the Novus Ordo.

You have multiple layers of change at work. The changes in the Latin texts, then the so-called “mistranslations” that were approved.

If you really want to hear a comparison. William Biersach and Charles Coulombe made a 17 hour tape series comparing the missals in Latin and English with added missals of the Coptic Rite and several other rites of the Church for the Consecration forms and rubrics.

To this day, I’ve never heard a plausible explanation for why the Kyrie (Lord have mercy) was reduced from 9 to 6 invocations.

 

[brigid12]

You used a smiley, but it was true that he was surrounded by enemies, as the current Pontiff probably is as well.

I’ve often thought of what our current Pontiff might be facing in the Vatican.

Do any of you that have done extensive research know why Pope Paul VI would have re-hired Bugnini after his predecessor had fired him? And looking at the fruits, which were amazingly accessible to Pope Paul VI, too, why did it then take the masonic connection (or threat of exposing such to the media) for Pope Paul VI to rid the Vatican of Bugnini. And why were/are so many current bishops plus members of the curia so strongly opposed to Traditionalism? Even if one important (then) member of the curia were a mason (if), that still doesn’t explain everything else that “came down the pike” after 1975.

 

[ProVobis]

I’ve often thought of what our current Pontiff might be facing in the Vatican.

Do any of you that have done extensive research know why Pope Paul VI would have re-hired Bugnini after his predecessor had fired him? And looking at the fruits, which were amazingly accessible to Pope Paul VI, too, why did it then take the masonic connection (or threat of exposing such to the media) for Pope Paul VI to rid the Vatican of Bugnini. And why were/are so many current bishops plus members of the curia so strongly opposed to Traditionalism? Even if one important (then) member of the curia were a mason (if), that still doesn’t explain everything else that “came down the pike” after 1975.

Good questions. Perhaps as good as wanting to know why Pius XII refused to give Montini (the future Pope Paul) the red hat while John XXIII’s almost first act was to promote Montini to cardinal. Almost as if Pius XII knew enough about him (befriending communists, etc.) so as to not give Montini any chance at becoming Pope. (So you know in those days only Italians were elected Popes.) Did Montini as Pope Paul carry a grudge over it? Who knows. And didn’t someone mention some homosexual behaviors going on in the Church as well way before Vatican II? But I wasn’t there to know one way or another to know the extent but certainly those guys at the top should have borne some responsibility.

 

[KitWhite]

For the truth about what really happened to the Catholic Church, go to www.VaticanCatholic.com