The Bugnini-Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform - MusicaSacra

eligious orders up to 1970. There was no universal Roman liturgy that
showed deviations depending on the location and the times of its use, in
fact, these variants represented in their integrity the common essence of the
Roman liturgy. The differences of the individual liturgies are historically extremely
interesting and the details very clear if we examine them closely.
However, the moment we look at them from the perspective of our time,
they appear to constitute a uniform, characteristic liturgical family separated
not only from the rite of the Eastern churches but from the liturgy of the
other Latin rites (e.g. Mozarabic, Ambrosian, etc.), too. Unity and difference
within this "Roman" liturgy (or liturgies) is not accidental, and the number
and importance of the common features are greater than that of differences.
A relatively late variant of this common Roman liturgy was the rite of
the Papal Court, the Romana Curia. This "Curial" liturgy was the starting
point of the Council of Trent (more accurately, of the reforms after the
Council), hence this "Curial" liturgy determined indirectly the liturgical
practice of the 17 th to 20 th centuries, too. The Tridentine reform did not aim
at creating a new, up-to-date liturgy. All it wanted to achieve was to prune
off the wild shoots of the late Middle Ages, of humanism and Reformation.
It meant to be a reform in the original sense of the word: the restoration
of the "pure" forms of the Roman rite. The Trident rite is therefore
a special form compared to the liturgy of Paris, Cologne, Prague or to that
of the Dominicans, Premonstratensians. The Tridentine reform slightly impoverished
the Roman liturgy and mutilated its integrity by disregarding
these traditions. (It must be acknowledged, however, that it happened in
spite of the original intentions since the norm of Trent was established to
replace the 16 th -century "modern" reform liturgies, and not the traditions
having survived "from time immemorial.")
These drawbacks, nevertheless, can only be discovered if we compare
the Tridentinum with eminent representatives of the Roman liturgy. Compared
with other rites outside the sphere of the Roman liturgy or with the
Bugnini liturgy, the Tridentinum proves to be a member of the Roman liturgy.
In this respect the Tridentine rite is identical with the centuries-old
Roman liturgy, being one of its branches itself, while the Bugnini liturgy
does not belong to the great family of the Roman liturgy.
In my opinion this distinction was neglected by no means innocently or
by negligence. It was done with a purposeful manipulation. The reason why
the Bugnini liturgy was introduced as if it differed not from the Roman tra-