THE TWILIGHT ZONE IN TERMS OF THE UNITING QUALITIES OF THE BUGNINI MASS

First, there is a liturgical bishop who just said this about the Bugnini Mass and I say, “duh! Ya think???

More than six decades after the approval of Sacrosanctum Concilium and the liturgical reform that followed the Second Vatican Council, the archbishop of Catanzaro-Squillace, Claudio Maniago, president of the Episcopal Commission for the Liturgy of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), has acknowledged that “we still do not know how to celebrate in a way that brings forth the splendor of the liturgy”.

And Timothy Cardinal Radcliffe says this:

 I do deeply sympathise with people whose love of the Tridentine Mass has led them into tension with the hierarchy. Some of them are my friends and I hate to see them pained. But it is good always to remember that the Eucharist is the sacrament of our unity in Christ. So I believe that the sacrament can never become a sign of disunity with the Body of Christ. However painful it might be, if the Church declares that a rite is not to be used, however much one might love it, it cannot be good to let its celebration be a source of division.

It is possible to celebrate the new Rite in Latin with great dignity and solemnity. I did so once for the funeral of a cousin of mine. Some people rushed up afterwards and congratulated me for celebrating the old rite, and I had to explain that it was the new rite. They had not been able to tell the difference. Many people can, of course.

What to say? What to say? Oh! What am I to say? A hell of a lot!

First, Archbishop Claudio Maniago is only now realizing that the Bugnini Mass, in terms of how it is celebrated AROUND THE WORLD says that “we still do not know how to “bring forth the splendor of the (Bugnini) Liturgy!

Might it be its shallow rubrics? It endless options? Facing the Assembly? It’s inane musical selections? Priests who see themselves as entertainers and the central star of the Mass? Casual and irreverent reception of Holy Communion, standing and on the run and by popping the Host in one’s mouth while on the run and sharing it with others? A child can figure out what the problem is with the Bugnini Mass and initiate a reform of the reform in continuity with the TLM! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out! 

And then secondly, we have Cardinal Radcliffe’s inane answer to why Catholics must be obedient to only celebrating the Bugnini Mass as a source of liturgical unity in the Church! Has His Eminence never heard of the other liturgical Rites of the Latin Rite? Has he never heard of the Eastern Rite Liturgies? Does he not realize that the Bugnini Mass is so wildly celebrated in such diverse ways that there is no real unity in its celebration and even in the same parish? That the Bugnini Mass is so diverse that it varies from priest to priest, parish to parish, diocese to diocese? That there is no real unity in the Bugnini Mass in the Latin Rite as there was on the eve of Vatican II???? 

And then he says most Catholics, who are truly dumb, can’t tell the difference between a Bugnini Mass in Latin and the TLM? If that is the case, then there is no problem Cardinal Radcliffe—the dumb laity think that a Latin TLM and a Latin Bugnini Mass show forth no differences and thus there is unity?

Is there senility in these prelates? One has to wonder!