The Architect of the Protestantization of the Liturgy, a Freemason?

This blog contains quotes from two email Newsflash letters from Robert Moynihan, Inside the Vatican editor and journalist http://www.insidethevatican.com. In these excerpts, Moynihan describes some of the controversy around Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, a prominent figure behind the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms. From my own readings of the council document on the liturgy, I have been amazed at how far the reforms diverged beyond the intent of the actual text. For example, Latin was not supposed to be replaced with the local languages, but local languages were to be "allowed" in certain parts of the Mass . . . .

One of the quotes I found in this article indicates that one goal of the reformers was to Protestantize the liturgy. “We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants.” —Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965

Also pretty convincing is the story that Archbishop Bugnini was a Mason, one of whose stated goals is to work against the Catholic Church. As the story goes, as soon as Pope Paul VI was presented with convincing proofs of Archhbishop Bugnini's Masonry, the pope immediately removed Bugnini from his position and banished him to Iraq.

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From: Dr. Robert Moynihan
Subject: Letter from Rome, #231
Date: July 15, 2009 9:00:44 PM PDT

A Dying Cardinal

I was a friend of the late Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, who died two years ago at the age of 89 (his dates were January 15, 1918 to August 25, 2007) .

A Canadian who was for many years the President of the Holy See's Pontifical Council for the Family, Gagnon was known in Rome for his full support of the prohibition of artificial contraception in Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae. (Note: The demographic collapse of the West is often attributed, in Rome, to the rejection by the West of the teaching of Pope Paul VI in that encyclical. Inotherwords, the social, cultural and historical, as well as moral and spiritual, consequences of the rejection of that encyclical have been profound.)

The demographic collapse of the West is often attributed, in Rome, to the rejection by the West of the teaching of Pope Paul VI in that encyclical [Humanae Vitae].

He died on August 25, 2007 in Montreal at the Saint-Sulpice Seminary.

On hearing of his death, Pope Benedict XVI said that Cardinal Gagnon was a "faithful pastor who, with an evangelical spirit, consecrated his life in service to Christ and his Church."

It is widely known in Rome that Gagnon went on a special mission for Pope John Paul II in the late 1980s to investigate the Society of St. Pius X, found by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (photo), in the hope of finding a way to avoid a schism, and that his mission failed.

It is now generally forgotten that Pope Paul VI gave Gagnon a different mission 10 years earlier, in the late 1970s in Rome.

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The following is drawn from an interesting 2007 article by Msgr. Vincent Foy, the oldest diocesan priest in the Archdiocese of Toronto, a canon lawyer by training.

"About 1977 the Pope (Paul VI) asked Bishop Gagnon to conduct an investigation of the whole Roman Curia. There were widespread rumors of corruption and infiltration by enemies of the Church. These led to the often-repeated saying of the Pope that the smoke of Satan had entered the Church [my emphasis]. This was an immense task, which took many months of intense work and many interviews.

"Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, in a (2001) interview with Latin Mass magazine, reprinted in Christian Order this year (2007), gives this account, based on a conversation of Bishop Gagnon with an Italian priest, Don Luigi Villa of the diocese of Brescia.

"Bishop Gagnon (she said) 'compiled a long dossier, rich in worrisome details. He requested an audience with Pope Paul in order to deliver personally the manuscript to the Pontiff. This request for a meeting was denied. The Pope sent word that the document should be placed in the offices of the Congregation for the Clergy, specifically in a safe with a double lock. This was done, but by the very next day the safety box was broken and the manuscript mysteriously disappeared. This theft was reported even in L’Osservatore Romano (perhaps under pressure because it had been reported in the secular press). Cardinal Gagnon, of course, had a copy, and once again asked the Pope for a private audience. Once again his request was denied. He then decided to leave Rome and return to his homeland in Canada'... (end of Hildebrand quote)

(still Foy writing) "Bishop Gagnon wrote me on June 10th, 1979, about ten months after the election of Pope John Paul II (October 1978). He said, in part, 'He (the Pope) must feel that if he started changing or contradicting the VIPs around him he would be engaged in a constant battle and would not be left enough time or strength to preach and write — all you can do for the Church is to pray and fast. We should not judge him — but I am waiting for his settling down after Poland to tell him that I am sorry for him and cannot continue working in the present set-up..."

(For a full report on this matter, see: http://catholicinsight.com/online/features/article_764.shtml)

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Having known Cardinal Gagnon, and having read these accounts of his work in the 1970s and 1980s, I was always hopeful of conducting a long interview with him. However, the opportunity did not present itself, and in the summer of 2007, I learned that the cardinal was dying. I therefore decided to buy an airplane ticket and travel to Montreal to pay my last respects to him before his passing. This is what happened...

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Two years ago, on July 22, 2007, I wrote this report to myself; it has never previously been published:

"I am writing this at 11:06 on Sunday morning in Montreal. It is a perfect summer day under an azure sky with a light breeze blowing over the square cobblestones of the piazza in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady -- Notre Dame -- in the center of Montreal.
"I first thought I would not be able to get in to see the cardinal. The courtyard was empty, a sign said the rectory was closed on Sundays, when I looked in there was no one inside, and there was no white bell. So I walked around the basilica, then inside it, spoke with an usher, and he told me I could go back to the sacristy. There, I met a priest, who told me to go back to the same door of the rectory at 116 rue de Notre-Dame. I went back, and pushed the asterisk number. No answer. Again. No answer. Then I saw a man sitting inside at the desk. He had not been there before. I knocked on the window. He buzzed and the door opened and let me in. (The following conversation then occurred.)

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"Who are you and what do you want?"

"I am an old friend of Cardinal Gagnon. I would like to see him."

"He is very weak, too weak to see anyone."

"I called some days ago, they said I could see him briefly."

"Come, we will go and ask."

I walked behind him into the hallway of the rectory. "Wait here," he said. I waited in a waiting room. There was a Documentation Catholique on the table about the Pope's trip to Brazil.

The priest came back. "He is too weak. He does not wish to see anyone."

"But I have come so far."

"No, I'm sorry," he said. "He is too tired."

I pulled out a copy of my magazine. "Take this and ask him one last time." Reluctantly, he took the magazine, turned and went back down the hall.

Another minutes passed as I waited alone in the reading room. Then, his voice: "Robert? (pause) Robert?" I went to the door and looked down the dark hall. He was standing up on top of four stairs at the end of the hallway. He motioned to me. "Come. He will see you. But only for you to say goodbye to him, nothing more. You can only stay for a moment."

I walked down the hallway and into the room. Light was coming into the livingroom, and off to the left was a door leading in to a less bright bedroom. There, on a hospital bed with intravenous tubes set into his arms on each side, lay a very old, pale man. Two oxygen tubes entered his nostrils. It was Cardinal Gagnon.

"Your Eminence," I said. "I have come to say good-bye to you."

His eyes recognized me. "You are doing good work," he said. "I read your magazine."

"How are you feeling?"

"Very tired," he said.

"I wanted to thank you for everything you have done, the work you have done for the Church."

He barely acknowledged my words.

The priest stood in the doorway of the room. "Come away now, let him rest," he said. "Don't tire him any further."

I reached out my hand and took his hand.

"Your eminence, many years ago, you helped me. I wanted to thank you for that. You helped me at the very start of my career..."

"You have written well," he said. "Continue. Your work is important."

The other priest was insistent now. "Come," he said. "It is time."

"Your Eminence," I said, "you have done so much for the Church...."

He was silent, and his eyes closed.

"Your Eminence, you must be tired. All the struggles over the years..."

Silence.

"Robert, it is time to go," said the priest who had brought me to him.

"Your Eminence, the study you made for Pope Paul VI in the 1970s..."

He opened his eyes and looked directly into mine.

"The study that was stolen," I said.

He knew what I was talking about, I feel sure. He knew immediately and clearly.

"Did you keep any copy of the document?"

"No," he said, and I felt a great weariness in him. "They ordered me to destroy every copy," he said. "And I obeyed."

"So there are no copies of your report?"

"No," he said. He closed his eyes. He seemed enormously, extraordinarily tired. I felt like I was almost cruel, to continue to push him to think, to recall, to speak...

The other priest called to me again. "Robert," he said. "Don't ask him anything else. It is enough now."

But I had one more question.

"Is there anyone else you confided in, who knows the content of your report?"

"There is someone," he said, with a sigh, and closed his eyes as if he were going to fall into a slumber out of his great weariness.

"Who?" I asked.

"Monsignor..." and he coughed as he said the name, and a little spittle came out onto his thin, dry lips...

"Who?" I asked again. "I couldn't hear what you said..."

I bent my head closer to his lips. I put my ears only an inch or two from his mouth.

"Monsignor (name)," he said, and whispered the name. "He helped me prepare the report."

"Monsignor (name)?" I said, repeating the name.

"Yes," Gagnon said.

"Monsignor (first name) (last name)?" I said, giving both his first and last names.

"Yes," said Gagnon. "We worked together on it. He knows everything that it contained."

My heart skipped a beat. I had not obtained the report itself. But I had gotten something almost as good: a living witness...

"Go talk to him," Gagnon said. "As you see, my time remaining in this world will be brief now... You must pray for me."

"I will pray for you," I said.

"The other priest said, 'Come, come, he is too tired now..."

"Will you give me your blessing?" I asked Gagnon.

He lifted his thin, white, bony hand, where there was a long red splotch underneath the skin due to a hemorrage from an intravenous needle.

"Benedicat te omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus." ("May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.")

He moved his hand about an inch and a half, trembling, in the sign of the cross.

He closed his eyes. He was simply too tired to keep them open.

The priest tugged on my arm, and gestured with his eyes towards the door.

I left Gagnon's side and walked out of the bedroom, out of the livingroom, out into the green hallway, down the steps and out to the front door.

"You were lucky," the priest said to me. "You shouldn't have been able to see him today. I am never here on Sunday mornings. I don't know why I came down. And if I hadn't come down, no one would have been here to let you in."

"Thanks for helping," I said.

"You were very lucky," he repeated.

And he let me out the door, and it closed behind me.

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From: Dr. Robert Moynihan
Subject: Letter from Rome, #22
Date: July 18, 2009 9:50:56 AM PDT

The Briefcase Left Behind

...

When I got back to Rome after my brief July 22 meeting with Cardinal Gagnon not long before his death in August 2007, I called the monsignor whose name Gagnon had given me.

He agreed to meet with me, and we sat down at a cafe at the bottom of via delle Fornaci.

And we began to talk.


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From: Dr. Robert Moynihan
Subject: Letter from Rome, #23
Date: July 19, 2009 9:00:44 PM PDT

The Briefcase Left Behind (continued)

I began my conversation with the monsignor indicated to me by Cardinal Gagnon asw he lay dying with the simple fact of Gagnon's passing in August of 2007.

We spoke in Italian. The conversation took place in the fall of 2007.

"I was sorry to hear of Cardinal Gagnon's passing," I said.

"Yes, so was I," the monsignor said. "He was a great servant of the Church. He suffered a great deal."

"I knew him," I said. "He was always helpful to me, especially when I was beginning."

"He was a kind man."

And then we began our usual conversation, on the state of the Church, the latest news in the Vatican, and so forth. Our conversation turned naturally to the publication on July 7, 2007, of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which promoted wider use of the old rite of the Mass.

"I'm confused," I said.

"Why?" he said.

"The whole thing," I said. "What happened at the Second Vatican Council, the Constitution on the Liturgy, the Commission established to revise the Mass, Monsignor Bugnini... And now, 40 years later, we seem to be still in a state of confusion. It seems like all the things we held sacred — all the things we loved — have been trampled upon."

"You are too gloomy," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "Yes, things have been trampled upon, but the essential remains. Don't lose heart."

"Does the essential remain?" I asked. "Look around. We have some who don't care about any traditions at all, they look at the 'old Church' as narrow and guilt-ridden, and they will do anything not to go back. And we have many traditionalists who seem to focus solely on externals — it sometimes seems an idolatry of the ritual..."

"I don't see it that black-and-white," the monsignor said. "You are leaving out all the individuals, all their acts of sacrifice, their good humor, their prayer. You have fallen into a trap. In the fight over truth, don't forget grace. Remember, there is God, the Holy Spirit, Mary..."

"But why do so many seem not to care?"

"Some are thoughtless. Some are persuaded the Church should be changed. Some just flow with the tide. Some are motivated by money. And then there are those who serve other masters. That was the case with Bugnini..."

I was startled. Not because of what he said, because it is an old allegation, but because of the way he said it, as if it was something settled, beyond discussion.

"Of course, I have heard that," I said, "but why do you say it so bluntly, as if it were certain? I thought it was just an allegation?"

"It is certain," he said. "At least, as certain as anything can be in this world. He went to a meeting in the Secretariat of State, with his briefcase. It was in 1975. Later that evening, when everyone had gone home, a monsignor found the briefcase Bugnini had left behind. The monsignor decided to open it to see who the owner was. And when he opened it, he found letters inside addressed to Bugnini, as to a brother, from the Grand Master of Italian Freemasonry..."

"But could those letters have been forgeries?" I asked. "Could someone have opened the briefcase, seen it was Bugnini's, and then slipped these false documents inside, to frame him?"

"Well, theoretically, I suppose, that is possible. [Note to readers: Bugnini himself always said the allegations were false, that he was never a freemason, and that the charges were made against him by disgruntled conservatives who opposed the work he had done on the liturgy.] But Paul VI, at least, didn't think so. When the evidence was brought to him, he came to the conclusion that Bugnini needed to be removed immediately from his post. Bugnini was made the papal nuncio in Iran. After more than 25 years as the head of the liturgical reform, he was abruptly fired and sent to a country where there are hardly any Catholics at all. It was a type of banishment.

"That is very sad," I said.

"No," he said, "it is very human... And today, 35 years later, it is in the past. It is something we can do nothing about."

"But if this is really true," I said, "then Paul VI may have approved of the new Mass under 'false pretences,' as it were. Wouldn't that raise questions about the entire liturgical reform? And why, then, did Paul VI not go back to the drawing board, if he believed what you say was true?"

(For more on the letters in the briefcase, see: http://www.traditioninaction.org/ProgressivistDoc/A_075_BugniniMason.htm)

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The Monsignor Sums Up

"Look," the monsignor said, "no matter how many defeats the Church suffers, no matter how many betrayals, there is always hope..."

"But the losses are so great," I said, "it is as if the link between our time and the past has been severed..."

"No!" He looked fiercely at me. "You yourself are evidence that it has not been severed. And so am I. And I tell you, that even were you to fall, and betray the faith, and even were I to fall, and even if all around us were to fall, still, the Church will not be defeated. She will prevail. Non praevalebunt!"

And I looked at him and marveled at his faith.

And I still had not asked him about the Gagnon dossier...

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(More to come...)

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