| Styles of Annibale Bugnini |
|
|---|---|
| Spoken style | Your Excellency |
| Religious style | Monsignor |
| Posthumous style | none |
Annibale Bugnini, C.M. (June 14, 1912–July 3, 1982) was a Roman Catholic prelate. Ordained in 1936 and named archbishop in 1972, he was secretary of the commission that worked on the reform of the Catholic liturgy that followed the Second Vatican Council.
Bugnini remains a very controversial figure among Catholics, especially for traditional Catholics, due to his role in the mid-twentieth-century liturgical reform (both before and after Vatican II) and due to allegations that he was a Freemason (a serious accusation against any Catholic, but especially a senior member of the hierarchy). He denied these allegations during his lifetime, and they remain unproven.
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Annibale Bugnini was born in Civitella del Lago[1] in Umbria. In 1928 he began his theological studies with the Congregation of the Mission.[2] He was ordained a priest on 26 July 1936 and spent ten years in parish work in a Roman suburb.[3] From 1947 became involved in the production of the missionary publications of his order and at the same time became the first editor of Ephemerides Liturgicæ. From 1949 he taught Liturgical Studies at the Pontifical Urban College (now the Pontifical Urban University), later becoming a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University.[4]
On May 28, 1948, Pope Pius XII appointed him Secretary to the Commission for Liturgical Reform.[5] This body was responsible for the creation of a new rite for the celebration of the Easter Vigil (1951) and then for the creation of new ceremonies for the rest of Holy Week (1955). That same year, the Commission changed the rubrics of the Mass and Office, suppressing most of the Church's octaves and a number of vigils, and abolishing the First Vespers of most feasts. The Commission went on to reform the Code of Rubrics (1960) which led to new editions of the Roman Breviary in 1961 and the Roman Missal in 1962.[6] The liturgical changes implemented by the Commission for Liturgical Reform between 1951 and 1962, which are still reflected in the 1962 Missal and Breviary, laid the ground for the creation of a new form of the Roman rite after Vatican II.
On January 25, 1959, Pope John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council and on June 6, 1960, Fr. Bugnini was appointed the Secretary of the Pontifical Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy. This body drafted the document that would become Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.
Fr. Bugnini had been secretary of the Council's Preparatory Commission for the Liturgy. The Council - for which Fr Bugnini was appointed as a peritus - voted in the new Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, December 4, 1963. On January 3, 1964, Pope Paul VI appointed Bugnini as Secretary of the Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy ("the Consilium" for short).[7]
On July 16, 1975, Pope Paul VI announced that he was dissolving the Congregation for Divine Worship and merging it with the Congregation of the Sacraments.
On January 4, 1976, the Vatican announced Bugnini's appointment as Pro-Nuncio to Iran. There, not only did he deal with the ordinary business of a papal nunciature, but he also studied and acquired knowledge of the country, its history, and its cultural, religious, and social traditions. The result was his book La Chiesa in Iran ("The Church in Iran").[8] Once he completed that book, he wrote the well-known resource, "The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975."
As Papal Representative to Iran, Bugnini tried in 1979 to obtain, in the name of the pope, the release of the American hostages. The elderly Nuncio met with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian leader, to deliver Pope John Paul II's appeal for the release of the hostages, but the Ayatollah rejected the appeal. The 52 Americans were eventually released on January 21, 1981, after 444 days in captivity.
Some Catholics, particularly in the traditionalist Catholic community, believe that Bugnini was a Freemason. Relations between the Church and Freemasonry have been hostile, and Catholics who become Freemasons are automatically excommunicated and therefore are not permitted to receive Holy Communion.[9] It is claimed that Bugnini's alleged Masonic connections explain in part what is perceived by some as the modernistic course of the liturgical reform, and that the discovery of his affiliation prompted his sudden transfer by the Pope from his post in the Roman Curia to that of Papal Nuncio to Iran.
According to Bugnini, a cardinal told him in the summer of 1975 that a "dossier" proving him to be a Freemason had been brought to the Pope's desk.[10] The allegations became public in April 1976, shortly after Bugnini's appointment as nuncio to Iran, and were reported in the Italian press.[11]
The Vatican made no immediate denial of the rumours.[12] Two months later, in June 1976, claims were made publicly that Bugnini, together with over 100 other Vatican officials, were Masons. In October 1976, the Vatican affirmed that "not one of the accused Vatican prelates has ever had anything to do with Freemasonry".[13]
The English traditionalist Catholic writer Michael Davies investigated the allegations and claimed to have made contact with a priest who "came into possession of what he considered to be evidence proving Mgr Bugnini to be a Mason" and who had "this information placed in the hands of Pope Paul VI by a cardinal".[14] The Australian theologian Fr. Brian Harrison, while disputing Davies' account of the affair, said that he too had heard (from a source whom he does not name) that a Roman priest had found evidence against Bugnini in a briefcase that he had left behind in a conference room.[15] The story about the briefcase also appears in Piers Compton's 1981 book The Broken Cross, though this publication connects a number of conspiratorial allegations and is consequently of disputed credibility. Specifically, Compton writes that Bugnini's membership was recorded in "the Italian Register" on April 23, 1963, "and that his code name was Buan." [16]
The Vatican prelate Cardinal Silvio Oddi was quoted as commenting: "I can swear that [Bugnini] was not a Freemason.... I remain convinced that these accusations were made up by someone in his office... who wanted to eliminate him".[1]
Archbishop Annibale Bugnini died in Rome at the Pius XI Clinic on July 3, 1982.[17] He had served as papal nuncio for the last six years of his life and died at 70 years of natural causes.
The personal secretary of Archbishop Bugnini was Archbishop Piero Marini, who is now President of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.
| Preceded by Enrico Dante |
Delegate of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations 1968 - 9 January 1970 |
Succeeded by Virgilio Noè |