OK, maybe I highlighted the leaders. I have often wondered what it must have been like, as a Catholic, to have lived through the revolution that was inflicted upon the Church between 1962 and, say, 1972. I know there was much other insanity going on at the time, so it was only a signficant part of a larger picture, but, nevertheless, I have wondered why there wasn’t more opposition, more “thus far and no farther.” Well, it seems there is a determined effort to relive those halcyon days (for the progressives) again. It is odd seeing geriatric men thinking their decades old ideas are “hip” and “with it.”
But the broader question is, if there is a revolution, and it is obvious, what are we going to do about it?
I really like this sermon below. Thanks to reader D for sending it. I am sure it comes from Audio Sancto. There is a real zinger in the last minute, quoting, it is said, Paul VI, in response to a question posed to him, as to why he was so severely against the Traditional Latin Mass, and kept pretending it was “abrogated:”
“He would never permit the “Old Mass” to remain, for to allow the TLM a home within the Church, would mean that many of the other changes made by the ‘modern church’ might be brought into question, and it might, even, bring some elements of the recent Council, perhaps, into doubt.”
The priest then concludes by asking whether many of the destructive changes of the past 50 years ought to be brought into question. A year a go, that question could still be fairly asked, now, I think the question is, what will be left even of that rump of Catholicism that existed, say, in 2012.
The sermon——Oh, you don’t know what a battle I had to get this uploaded. I am sorry for the picture but I am out of time for the day. Just disregard the pic and listen. I do not have time to figure out the movie making software, upload umpteen pics, and do all the rest. Suffice it to say, I will not be providing much competition to Video Sancto anytime soon.
This gets me back to a post I mentioned earlier, another post from Rorate, regarding how the Novus Ordo, or new Mass, was developed. I sometimes feel bad picking on the Novus Ordo, because I know there are many people who simply do not have the TLM as an alternative. I pray every day for that to change. But I think the below is so key in describing what a false, fabricated, underdone, poorly thought out a product the Novus Ordo is. It also reveals how the arch-modernist Bugnini used a weak Paul VI and the still incredibly strong unquestioning, almost unthinking obedience to the Holy See to achieve his most nefarious end:
It was Bouyer who had to remedy in extremis a horrible formulation of the new Eucharistic Prayer II, from which Bugnini even wanted to delete the “Sanctus”. [Knowing how truly awful EPII was and is, can imagine what this must have been like, if what we got was an improvement?] And it was he who had to rewrite the text of the new Canon that is read in the Masses today, one evening, on the table of a trattoria in Trastevere, together with the Benedictine liturgist, Bernard Botte, with the tormenting thought that everything had to be consigned the following morning. [And for this, the Roman Canon, 1700 to maybe 1900 years old, was thrown over]
But the worst part is when Bouyer recalls the peremptory “the Pope wants it” that Bugnini used to shut up the members of the commission every time they opposed him; for example, in the dismantling of the liturgy for the dead and in purging the “imprecatory” verses from the psalms in the Divine Office.
Paul VI, discussing with Bouyer afterwards about these reforms “that the Pope found himself approving, not being satisfied about them any more than I was,”asked him. “Why did you all get mired in this reform?” And Bouyer [replied], “Because Bugnini kept assuring us that you absolutely wanted it.” To which Paul VI [responded]: “But how is this possible? He told me that you were all unanimous in approving it…” [But Bouyer was far from innocent. One of the original agitators demanding they had the right to change the immortal Mass, to "improve" it, he did recoil when the revolution quickly got out of hand. But see how Bugnini skillfully played one side off the other to keep the revolution always moving forward. This is the dominant view of how the liturgical aspect of the revolution - the driving force for the whole revolution - was carried out. Fr. Cekada argues in his book, however, that Paul VI was far from a hapless dupe in this process, and that he got exactly the "reform" he wanted. Not too many have argued that point as strongly as Cekada, who claims to have seen Paul VI's handwritten notes all over developmental copies of the Novus Ordo. The quote from the sermon above seems to indicate Paul VI had a certain motive for the liturgical deform, doesn't it? But who am I to judge?]
Bouyer recalls in his “Mémoires” that Paul VI exiled the “despicable” Bugnini to Teheran as Nuncio, but by then the damage had already been done. [Of course, many reports attribute that sacking to the irrefutable evidence found of Bugnini's masonic membership. It did take place in 1975, after Bugnini had been given over a decade to wreckovate the Mass and entire Church, and over 5 years after the grave deficiencies of the Novus Ordo were well known] For the record, Bugnini’s personal secretary, Piero Marini, would then go on to become the director of pontifical ceremonies from 1983 to 2007, and even today there are voices circulating about him as the future Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship. …
Everything old is new again: