The American philosopher and liturgist Peter Kwasniewski recommends the biography Annibale Bugnini. Reformador de la liturgia, by the French historian Yves Chiron, to which he dedicates the first of two installments of his “Professor’s Bookshelf” section on Tradition & Sanity, published this November 7. The second part will appear next week. In Spain the book is published by Homo Legens, with a foreword by Gabriel Calvo Zarraute and translation by Pilar Abellán Millán.
Kwasniewski describes Chiron as “one of the finest and most prestigious French historians,” with dozens of biographies and studies to his credit. Regarding this work, he states that it not only presents well the life of the “quintessential Vatican bureaucrat,” whose work has marked the lives of billions of souls, but also serves as a concise introduction to the history of the liturgical reform of the second half of the twentieth century. That is why, he explains, he recommends it to anyone who wants to know “what happened.”
Excerpts for those who don’t have time to read it
The professor selects passages from the book for those who want to sample it before buying, for those who don’t think they will have time to read it, and for those seeking a review of the tactics employed, in his view, to dismantle the Roman rite. Among Chiron’s quotations is, on page 82, Bugnini’s advice that many proposals be formulated “in germ” (in nuce) and that nothing be said that might suggest “excessive novelty.” He also includes, on page 114, Bugnini’s own assessment, in which he described concelebration and communion under both species as “two pearls of liturgical renewal.”
Kwasniewski’s comments are clear. Of the timetable for preparing concelebration, which the book sets out on page 111, he writes that it is “horrendous” and that the liturgy was being treated “like a laboratory or a scientific workshop.” According to his reading, Chiron documents a deliberate strategy of allowing very little time to examine and comment on the drafts.
A biography based on archives
According to the publisher’s listing, the 286-page volume, priced at 18.90 euros, reconstructs the career of the Vincentian priest who directed the post-conciliar liturgical reform for twelve years. To do so, it draws on the archives of his congregation, his private correspondence, the minutes of the Consilium, and the testimonies of those who supported him and those who opposed him. The publisher emphasizes that Chiron does not issue a definitive judgment, but rather presents the material so that each reader may draw their own conclusions.
The book, published in French in 2016, appeared in English in 2018 with Angelico Press, in a translation by John Pepino. It is also the source of the 1976 letter from Tehran in which Bugnini proposed authorizing the 1962 Mass with conditions, something Paul VI rejected, and which InfoVaticana reported in Bugnini proposed in 1976 authorizing the traditional Mass with conditions. Paul VI said no.
The archbishop’s figure has also returned to public debate in recent weeks. Father Charles Theodore Murr addressed the case in a conversation with Pedro Buerbaum, which InfoVaticana published in Murr explains the unsettling Bugnini case.