Anibale Bugnini, prime architect of the Novus Ordo, also wanted to wreck the Rosary March 25, 2013

Posted by Tantumblogo in asshatery

But Paul VI would not let him.

Some time ago, my wife bought Bugnini’s gloating, bloated Reform of the Liturgy at a used book giveaway. She read little bits, became totally disgusted by the man’s preening superiority, monumental ego, and his constant disdain for the 1500+ year old Roman Rite. So, she put it down. But, I picked it up the other day, and in just reading a little tiny bit, found in pp. 874-876 (Bugnini, he loved to talk) that the man who placed such enormous emphasis on “noble simplicity,” eliminating “useless repetitions” and “historical accretions,” also desired to utterly destroy the Rosary. How did he plan on doing that?

First, he was going to limit the Our Father to once at the beginning of the Rosary. Gone would be the Pater Nosters at the beginning of each decade. A “public version” of the Rosary would contain only one decade of Hail Marys/Ave Marias. Not only did he have the incredible gumption to gut a prayer prayed by millions that the Tradition tells us was given directly to St. Dominic Guzman by the Blessed Mother Herself, but he was going to wreck the Hail Mary by removing the “non-biblical” parts. That is to say, everything from “Holy Mary Mother of God” on would be eliminated, so you’d be left with Hail Mary Full of Grace the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb (the word Jesus at the end of this 2nd half of the Rosary would also be eliminated from most Hail Mary’s) and that’s it, 10 times, in the very hip and mod Rosary of Bugnini. That’s not entirely true, Bugnini – intruding himself into the private prayer lives of billions of Catholics (over time) and modifying one of the cherished, sacred, and efficacious prayers the Church has ever had, if not THE most efficacious, would allow for ONE recitation of the Holy Mary Mother of God part in each decade. So very generous of him.

That “public Rosary” – the traditional Rosary having been such an aggravation to the protestants Bugnini did everything possible to appease (with no discernible success) – would have been utterly unrecognizable as the same prayer, as only one decade of the truncated Hail Mary above would be present, with the rest replaced by passages from Scripture, hymns (and you can guess what kind of happy clappy crap he would come up with), and excerpts from the writings of various modernist exegetes.

Paul VI was actually somewhat sympathetic to the whole notion, but felt that the umbrage of the faithful would be too great to bear. Bugnini reported on p. 876 that Paul VI replied: “The faithful would conclude that ‘the Pope has changed the Rosary,’ and the psychological effect would be disastrous…” Amazing that Paul VI would say that regarding the Rosary, but somehow did not see that he was doing exactly the same thing with regard to the Mass.

I am utterly, utterly stupified by the monumental arrogance it would take to say “Hmmm….. that prayer Catholics have been saying for 700+ years, it’s really deficient, and it certainly isn’t ‘ecumenical.’ It really needs to be updated and changed.” Can you believe that? Isn’t that simply incredible, that a mid-level Vatican functionary would arrogate to himself the right to change a timeless, glorious prayer? He couldn’t even point to VII as cover in this case, as the Council never even remotely approached saying anything about attacking and wreckovating such constant prayer traditions. Thank God.

For some reason, all the above makes me feel compelled to post the following:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.

Vice what it replaced:

Accept, O holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this unspotted host, which I, Thy unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my innumerable sins, offenses, negligences, and for all here present: as also for all faithful Christians, both living and dead, that it may avail both me and them for salvation unto everlasting life. Amen.

I don’t think Our Lady would have been pleased with Bugnini’s update.