S Paul VI? A Jigsaw.

I hope readers will have seen the article in the Settimo Cielo Blog, concerning new information about what Blessed Paul VI really thought concerning the liturgical 'reforms' which Hannibal Bugnini deceived him into approving. Paolo VI. Una storia minima, by Mgr Leonardo Sapienza, clearly contains reliable archival information about Papa Montini and the years in which he uneasily used the Liturgy he had himself authorised. Sapienza publishes diaries in which Virgilio Noe, then the Master of Pontifical Ceremonies, noted the daily remarks of the Pontiff. This looks to me like another piece of a jigsaw which has been forming in my mind for some time.

This source sits very comfortably beside the account given by Montini's friend Louis Bouyer.

It renders more believable the well-known story about Pope Paul's surprise that he had abolished the Pentecost Octave.

It also fits neatly into the account given by Dom Cassian Folsom a few years ago in Adoremus; in which he meticulously demonstrated that the disastrous events (such as the authorisation of alternative 'Eucharistic Prayers') by which the Roman Rite was so horribly corrupted, were the result of the Pontiff being persuaded that the liturgical chaos throughout the liberal West (at that time, more than 200 rogue EPs were circulating unauthorised, for example) could only be brought under any sort of control by a very limited number of alternative Eucharistic Prayers, under the careful direction of Rome, being permitted.

Another important piece of the jigsaw is contained in the fine biography of Archbishop Lefebvre by His Excellency Bishop Tissier de Mallerais. This demonstrates that Pope Paul's mind could only be poisoned against the Archbishop by the gross and palpable lies which his enemies put into the pope's ears. They assured Paul that, in the SSPX, the Old Mass was promoted simply as a banner of anti-papal rebellion; that Lefebvre made his seminarians swear an oath against the pope. In other words, those evil and mendacious men realised that affection for the Mass of Ages would, of itself, be insufficient to corrupt Montini's view of the Great Archbishop. God forgive them for what they did.

Indeed, Papa Montini was, in the words of his predecessor, un po' amletico. He is not one of my heroes. All the same ... and I know some readers will disagree with me ... my personal judgement is that he was not an evil man, and I am willing to accept the Church's judgement about his current location. So, as we draw closer to his canonisation, I feel it is good and timely to begin to come to a more balanced picture on the man whose weak capitulations to devious men did undoubtedly lead to the greatest calamity in Latin Christianity since the Reformation. As he himself perceived (another piece of jigsaw here), the smoke was indeed of Satan; and Montini's failures arose mainly from his poor judgements upon those competing for his ear.

When Pope Paul learned the truth, he lost little time in heaving Bugnini, mitre, zucchetto, (?)apron and all, out of Rome, and over the hills and far away. That I regard as the final piece of the jigsaw.

It is clear that in some circles, this canonisation is being promoted as a political move to fasten down upon the Church a particular understanding of Vatican II, indeed, a hermeneutic Magisterially condemned by Benedict XVI. In God's providence, it may be that a fuller understanding of the real Paul VI will frustrate that knavish trick. 

Does anybody seriously think that the author of Humanae vitae would have favoured a regime bent upon promoting the acceptability of habitual Adultery?


I shall not enable comments on B Paul VI which seem to me to be merely abusive.

Mary Mother of the Church (3): Magnum principium and the Office Hymns

A final aspect of the promulgation of this new memoria, now to be universal in the Novus Ordo, is the provision, as part of the newly authorised liturgical texts, of 'proper' Latin Office Hymns for this particular celebration*. These will be needed for clergy using the Liturgia Horarum.

Readers will remember the widespread popular joy, which led to dancing in the streets and a great bonfire in the piazza in front of Westminster Cathedral, when, by a motu proprio called Magnum principium, PF gave to episcopal Conferences the happy duty of preparing vernacular translations of liturgical texts. (That jubilation was scarcely less exuberant than when, last August, PF assured us "with certainty and magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible".)

Of course, the overwhelming majority of Latin Rite clergy do not need a vernacular Office Book because they say their Office in Latin. They do this out of a very proper obedience, rigorously enforced by the bishops, to the irreversible Decree of the much-respected Second Vatican Super-duper-Council (Sacrosanctum Concilium Para 101: 1 "Iuxta saecularem traditionem ritus latini, in Officio divino lingua latina clericis servanda est, facta tamen Ordinario potestate usum versionis vernaculae ... concedendi, singulis pro casibus, iis clericis quibus usus linguae latinae grave impedimentum est quominus Officium debite persolvant").

But that irreversible Decree, you are about to remind me, did allow bishops, as a special concession in individual cases considered one by one, to permit linguistically challenged priests to say their Office in a vernacular. Quite so. I am indeed both glad and relieved, whenever I go into the bookshop next to Westminster Cathedral (now almost rebuilt after the damage caused by the fire), to see that the needs of this (albeit very tiny) minority of Catholic clergy are still fully provided for by the copious abundance of English-language Office Books on sale. It is good to be sensitive and generous towards that particular cultural periphery, however small and eccentric it may be. My fear had been that the irreversible Apostolic Constitution Veterum sapientia (1962; in which that good and great pope S John XXIII with certainty and Magisterial authority ordered the wholesale dismissal of all seminary teachers incapable of teaching in Latin) might have impacted the numbers of clerical aspirants with irreversibly weak Latin.

All the world's Episcopal Conferences, therefore, with the fresh new wind of Magnum principium billowing in their joyful sails, will be enthusiastically translating Latin hymnody into their respective crude, modern vernaculars. (Imagine how the mighty Christine must be rotating in her grave.) Just think of them vying with each other as they seek the most euphonious vernacular renderings for the tiniest nuances in the Latin! How the poor things find the time to spend on such civilised literary pursuits when they have been charged by a Higher Authority to be busy in coming to a common mind on Amoris laetitia, I cannot possibly imagine. They are far bigger men (and much more irreversible) than I could ever be.

A warning, however.

Their lordships would not be well advised to try to get away with some cheeky schoolboy trick like offering Marian hymns already composed in vernacular languages instead of real translations of the newly authorised Latin hymns, because the CDW, who still have to approve vernacular translations sent in by the Conferences, would of course instantly spot the dodge and send such drafts back to the Conferences irreversibly marked in angry schoolmaster's red ink "Not good enough. This simply WILL NOT DO". I am sure Cardinal Sarah will be an absolute martinet in enforcing Magnum principium down to the very last Yod, and the newly emancipated episcopates, bursting with and uplifted by grateful loyalty to PF, would themselves wish for nothing less.

(No, I would not be prepared to give them a helping hand. I am quite hopeless at writing English or Cornish verse. At my incredibly advanced age, I am far too old a dog to learn new tricks. Besides, I am confident that I would never be given a nulla osta to do such sensitive work. As my blog demonstrates, I am an irreversibly unsuitable and very loose canon cannon.)

I am now willing to consider Comments on these three posts. They should be composed in a suitably sombre and sober and responsible register.

*Footnote: Two of the three hymns are in fact from the Liturgia Horarum, where Dom Anselmo Lentini's Coetus offered  them as alternatives to the ancient Marian hymns for our Lady on Saturday. They are (very) free translations into Latin of a passage in Dante's Paradiso. B Paul VI liked them: it would be nice to think that this is the reason for their inclusion in the new memoria. The third hymn is medieval, and indexed in the Thesaurus.  I'm not sure how good it is ... but you are allowed to use the Ave Maris Stella instead.

I know what you're thinking: the glorious days have sadly passed when Leo XIII himself (died 1903) spared the time to compose new Office Hymns; also the days when Pius XII could turn to Fr Genovesi (died 1967); indeed, Dom Anselmo himself, no mean liturgical poet, has irreversibly passed from us (in 1989). I wonder when last the Vatican maintained officials styled "Sacrae Rituum Congregationis Hymnographi". I wonder if there was ever a post denominated "Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Archihymnographus". Wow!