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Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy
In this book, French historian Yves Chiron turns his attention to one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Catholicism: Annibale Bugnini, guiding spirit of liturgical reform in the period surrounding the Second Vatican Council. Highly controversial in his day, and down to the present, Bugnini has attracted high praise from his disciples and vilification from his detractors—but all agree that without his energetic organizational skills and access to the levers of power, the most extensive overhaul of the Roman Catholic liturgy in the history of the Church would not have taken place as it did.
Yet who was Bugnini, really? What were his formative experiences, personal ideals, intellectual assumptions, practical aims? How did he accomplish so much in so short a time? Why, after such a singular collaboration with Pope Paul VI, did he suddenly fall from grace and suffer exile? Should he be remembered as liturgiae amator et cultor, lover and servant of the liturgy (his epitaph), or as the éminence grise of an unscrupulous reinvention of Catholic worship? Can we cut through the legendary, the polemical, and the partisan, to arrive at a clear portrait of the man and his work? Until now, there has been no biography that makes extensive use of all available documentary sources, including Bugnini’s own memoirs, Vatican publications, private correspondence, interviews, articles, and lectures. The present book has filled this lacuna with the scholarly care and dispassionate analysis for which the author’s books are praised at all points on the ecclesiastical spectrum.
Yet who was Bugnini, really? What were his formative experiences, personal ideals, intellectual assumptions, practical aims? How did he accomplish so much in so short a time? Why, after such a singular collaboration with Pope Paul VI, did he suddenly fall from grace and suffer exile? Should he be remembered as liturgiae amator et cultor, lover and servant of the liturgy (his epitaph), or as the éminence grise of an unscrupulous reinvention of Catholic worship? Can we cut through the legendary, the polemical, and the partisan, to arrive at a clear portrait of the man and his work? Until now, there has been no biography that makes extensive use of all available documentary sources, including Bugnini’s own memoirs, Vatican publications, private correspondence, interviews, articles, and lectures. The present book has filled this lacuna with the scholarly care and dispassionate analysis for which the author’s books are praised at all points on the ecclesiastical spectrum.
214 pages, Hardcover
First published January 14, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 22, 2019
This short biography of Archbishop Bugnini was useful for many facts that it provided. It was, however, disappointing overall, not so much for what it contained, as for what was absent.
Chiron seems to studiously avoid painting the deeper portrait of character that one expects from a biography and, as such, the reader does not really know Bugnini at the end. What were Bugnini’s motivations? What was he thinking? What made him tick? Beyond what he did, who was he?
Besides not providing the reader with any solid content from Bugnini himself that might assist the reader to understand the man, Chiron also did not bring forward his own judgment. What does the author think about Bugnini? Was he a Modernist? Was he a sincerely Catholic prelate who was just blind to his own errors? Was he pompous and overbearing? Or was he meek and virtuous? The reader finishes the book without receiving Chiron’s own assessment of the man that he is presenting.
Because these key elements are left out, I was getting the impression that Chiron read through Bugnini’s memoirs, possibly when preparing his biography of Paul VI (which I have not read) and figured that he was in a position to write a biography of Bugnini for that reason alone. That seems to me to explain why he cut so many corners throughout the whole work and made it so superficial. It did not seem to me that he did research for Bugnini; it rather seemed that he did research for Paul VI and then just took whatever of that concerned Bugnini and wrote a Bugnini biography from that.
One thing that leads me to think this is that the biography seems to lose track of Bugnini for a few chapters. Chiron leaves Bugnini to give a history of all of the steps in the liturgical “reform”. Taken by themselves, one would not be able to guess that those chapters were part of a biography on Bugnini.
The treatment of the changes in the Church is very cold, similar to the treatment of Bugnini himself. The changes were devastating, tragic, and the Church is still very much suffering from them. But Chiron just relates them as a series of facts without showing any emotion, and so this gives the reader the impression that experimenting with the sacred liturgy, concocting new liturgies from scratch, taking a wrecking ball to the canon, and so on are just, well, things that happen in the life of the Church.
A more minor drawback is that the biography is Francocentric. What Bugnini did affected the entire Church, but Chiron seems to focus mainly on French prelates and things going on in the French orbit. The translator even had to correct some statements he had made, because Chiron had not read English sources like Michael Davies.
In conclusion, I think it is important for the reader to realize, when he picks up this book, that he will not really understand much about Bugnini from reading it. He will learn about things that Bugnini did, but will not really know who Bugnini was.
Chiron seems to studiously avoid painting the deeper portrait of character that one expects from a biography and, as such, the reader does not really know Bugnini at the end. What were Bugnini’s motivations? What was he thinking? What made him tick? Beyond what he did, who was he?
Besides not providing the reader with any solid content from Bugnini himself that might assist the reader to understand the man, Chiron also did not bring forward his own judgment. What does the author think about Bugnini? Was he a Modernist? Was he a sincerely Catholic prelate who was just blind to his own errors? Was he pompous and overbearing? Or was he meek and virtuous? The reader finishes the book without receiving Chiron’s own assessment of the man that he is presenting.
Because these key elements are left out, I was getting the impression that Chiron read through Bugnini’s memoirs, possibly when preparing his biography of Paul VI (which I have not read) and figured that he was in a position to write a biography of Bugnini for that reason alone. That seems to me to explain why he cut so many corners throughout the whole work and made it so superficial. It did not seem to me that he did research for Bugnini; it rather seemed that he did research for Paul VI and then just took whatever of that concerned Bugnini and wrote a Bugnini biography from that.
One thing that leads me to think this is that the biography seems to lose track of Bugnini for a few chapters. Chiron leaves Bugnini to give a history of all of the steps in the liturgical “reform”. Taken by themselves, one would not be able to guess that those chapters were part of a biography on Bugnini.
The treatment of the changes in the Church is very cold, similar to the treatment of Bugnini himself. The changes were devastating, tragic, and the Church is still very much suffering from them. But Chiron just relates them as a series of facts without showing any emotion, and so this gives the reader the impression that experimenting with the sacred liturgy, concocting new liturgies from scratch, taking a wrecking ball to the canon, and so on are just, well, things that happen in the life of the Church.
A more minor drawback is that the biography is Francocentric. What Bugnini did affected the entire Church, but Chiron seems to focus mainly on French prelates and things going on in the French orbit. The translator even had to correct some statements he had made, because Chiron had not read English sources like Michael Davies.
In conclusion, I think it is important for the reader to realize, when he picks up this book, that he will not really understand much about Bugnini from reading it. He will learn about things that Bugnini did, but will not really know who Bugnini was.
May 27, 2021
Yves Chirons work reads like a novel. Tracing the meteoric rise of Annibale Bugnini the chief influencer of the “new mass” - Novus Ordo Missae. (NOM) The details of how the changes to liturgy are well documented here. Ranging from Pope Pius X’s active participation phraseology to the Pius XII reforms and then moving into the storm of modernism of Vatican II itself.
Although I was familiar with the history of Conciliar Church changes, Bugnini’s role was not clear beyond him being the architect of the new mass. What strikes me having read this is the number of players involved such the members of preparatory committee and the consilium. Certainly Pope Paul VI played the instrumental and final authoritative role in the new liturgy. Including close collaboration and frequent meetings with Bugnini. But this same pope also reigned in some of the more freewheeling changes either proposed or being done without approval.
Ultimately the reformer was ousted from his position of influence with being reassigned to Iran as a Nuncio in 1975 until his final days in 1982. Clearly the changes he had worked struck a deeply negative cord with the other Vatican power brokers. But ultimately we are left with a massive and seemingly permanent change in the new orientation of the Mass. Bugnini is also accused of being a Freemason which he denied but in my mind based on the book remains quite likely.
Although I was familiar with the history of Conciliar Church changes, Bugnini’s role was not clear beyond him being the architect of the new mass. What strikes me having read this is the number of players involved such the members of preparatory committee and the consilium. Certainly Pope Paul VI played the instrumental and final authoritative role in the new liturgy. Including close collaboration and frequent meetings with Bugnini. But this same pope also reigned in some of the more freewheeling changes either proposed or being done without approval.
Ultimately the reformer was ousted from his position of influence with being reassigned to Iran as a Nuncio in 1975 until his final days in 1982. Clearly the changes he had worked struck a deeply negative cord with the other Vatican power brokers. But ultimately we are left with a massive and seemingly permanent change in the new orientation of the Mass. Bugnini is also accused of being a Freemason which he denied but in my mind based on the book remains quite likely.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 19, 2020
3.5. Worth reading for a concise history of Bugnini. Would have loved it to include even more letters etc from Bugnini (although it does have a copious number!) To really understand his thought even better, but a great introduction.
Was Bugnini truly love and serve the liturgy, or contribute to its disintegration producing something of his own whim instead of the desires of the Spirit? Thats what this book tries to work out.
Was Bugnini truly love and serve the liturgy, or contribute to its disintegration producing something of his own whim instead of the desires of the Spirit? Thats what this book tries to work out.
February 19, 2024
A fascinating, detailed insight into a mysterious Church figure. Really makes one feel that they are present right in the middle of the "reform". I understand the driving influences, the intentions and the general zeitgeist of that time much better after reading this. Do we know who Annibale Bugnini really was? Still, not fully, but this books helps us take a realistic, balanced view of the council and this preeminent figure in it.
August 21, 2023
Gives a lot of insight into Vatican II but not really what drove Bugnini personally; I didn't feel like I learnt much about who he was and why he did what he did.
July 7, 2023
Admirably balanced and as unpartisan as could be expected, as compared to most works on this divisive topic.
September 20, 2022
This was a fascinating survey of the Reform of the Liturgy. In fact, it was more about the reform than it was about Bugnini. That, AND, I found myself having a much softer place in my heart for Bugnini afterwards. Chiron is a legit historian and no slouch either. Angelus Press likes to publish his stuff, if that tells you anything. But in the end, he wasn't as "bad" as some make him out to be. In fact, many of the things that I thought were to be placed squarely at his feet, were really on Pope St. Paul VI, like it or not. If you are in to the insider information on the reform, this is one of the best I've read (and I've read a lot).
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews