To the editor:
I regret that the Catholic Herald would lend its space to voices of calumny. Both Kenneth J. Wolfe and Jacek M. Cianciara made unsubstantiated statements about Cardinal Annibale Bugnini, a priest who served the Church at the request of Pope Pius XII, Pope John XXIII, and Pope Paul VI. The idea that he could make changes in the liturgy without those three popes understanding what he was doing is ridiculous and an insult to the popes themselves.
To name Cardinal Bugnini as the author of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy is strange indeed. It would be well to remember that that document was approved by public vote of the Council Fathers on Wednesday, December 4, 1963, by 2,147 Council Fathers voting “yes,” and four Council Fathers voting “no.” After the vote Pope Paul VI confirmed the vote in the following words:
“In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The fathers have expressed their agreement with the decrees just read out in the presence of this legitimately assembled Sacred and Ecumenical Second Vatican Council. And We, in virtue of the apostolic authority given to Us by Christ, and in union with the reverend fathers, approve, establish, and ordain them in the Holy Spirit, and We order that what the Council has so ordained be published for the glory of God.”
Subsequent changes in the liturgy were made only with the approval of Vatican Offices and bishops’ conferences throughout the world.
Sr. Anne Marie Mongoven, O.P., Madison