Totius Sacrae Liturgiae Instaurator

In 1956, Hannibal Bugnini made the prediction that Pius XII would be given by History the title I have used as the heading above. Notice the totius !! We woz warned!!

My point today is going to be that the Second Vatican Council was not the cause of the liturgical disasters which followed it. (In fact, I strongly suspect that the Conciliar Decree on Liturgy represented, not an encouragement to irresponsible 'reforms', so much as a modest attempt to rein things back.) I will illustrate my point by quoting what the Reverend Professor Canon Doctor Eric Mascall wrote in 1958. By then things were already pretty clearly well out of hand!

"[T]he [Roman] authorities have set on foot nothing less than a liturgical revolution. No longer can it be said that 'Rome never changes'. Partly the changes have consisted in the introduction of totally new practices in order to meet the alleged special needs of the present day; such are, for example, the progressively extended permission for the celebration of Mass in the evening and the drastic modification of the rules governing the eucharistic fast. Partly they have consisted in the restoration of features of the rite that had been abandoned, or in the removal of medieval and modern accretions which were considered  to have obscured the true meaning of the liturgy; such are the complete revision of the rite of Holy Week ... Furthermore, it is well known that a much more radical reform is in preparation, which, if the statements made at the International Congress of Pastoral Liturgy held at Assisi in Septemberr 1956 can be taken as pointers, is likely among other things to include a vastly extended use of the vernacular. Some of these changes may be of doubtful advantage ..."