Back in Print: Ferdinando Antonelli's Revealing Diaries During the Liturgical Reform

Based on the diaries and notes of Ferdinando Cardinal Antonelli, a pivotal figure in the Catholic Church's liturgical reform movement for over twenty years, Nicola Giampietro's The Development of the Liturgical Reform reveals many important details about the forceful personalities that drove the process from Pius XII to Paul VI, the systems and methods by which decisions were made, and the competing principles invoked, with at times chaotic results.

Like his collaboratores Fr. Louis Bouyer and Fr. Boniface Luykx, Antonelli had an insider's grasp of the personnel, dynamics, and designs. He witnessed firsthand the good, the bad, and the ugly. For example:

“[The Consilium] is merely an assembly of people, many of them incompetent, and others of them well advanced on the road to novelty. The discussions are extremely hurried. Discussions are based on impressions and the voting is chaotic. What is most displeasing is that the expositive Promemorias and the relative questions are drawn up in advanced terms and often in a very suggestive form. The direction is weak." (166-67) "Many of those who have influenced the reform... have no love and no veneration of that which has been handed down to us. They begin by despising everything that is actually there. This negative mentality is unjust and pernicious, and unfortunately, Paul VI tends a little to this side. They have all the best intentions, but with this mentality they have only been able to demolish and not to restore." (192)

"While I would like to be mistaken, I can say that [Bugnini's] greatest lacuna was his lack of any theological training or sensibility. This was a grave defect and lacuna because in the liturgy, every word and every gesture expresses a theological idea. I have the impression that much has been conceded to the Protestant mentality, especially in matters regarding the sacraments." (196)

It's this kind of information that the conservatives and progressives don't want you to see: the admissions, from within, of all that went wrong. No wonder we are still suffering the consequences decades later.

In the interests of transparency, I should mention that this is not really a "sensationalistic" book. It's pretty technical and detailed, a sort of blow-by-blow account of various stages of reform, and Antonelli in the end was not an outspoken critic of the Novus Ordo. But it does contain a lot of valuable information for those who are serious students of the liturgy. Originally published in 2009 by Roman Catholic Books and out of print for some time, Os Justi Press is pleased to add this new edition of Giampietro to its growing Studies in Liturgical History and Reform series, where it joins Le Brun des Marettes, Guéranger, and Hazell.

Available in paperback and hardcover from the publisher or from any Amazon outlet. I talk about the book in a video: