Bugnini, Francis, Paul: Who’s Most Radical of Them All?

A study in the fine points of malfeasance

Any well-educated Catholic is likely to say that Francis was the worst pope ever. Manifestly, there has never been a pope responsible for a larger number, variety, and gravity of doctrinal errors than he, and as for moral corruption, one need only look at the long list of criminals he protected or promoted to see that he could have been put behind bars multiple times if there were any justice to be had in the upper echelons of the hierarchy. All this has been thoroughly documented in Dominic J. Grigio’s The Disastrous Pontificate: Pope Francis’ Rupture from the Magisterium, about which you can read my interview with Edward Pentin here.

However, let’s not forget that there are ways in which Paul VI was much more radical than Francis. Montini initiated and brought to completion a liturgical revolution the likes of which had never been seen in the entirety of Church history, and compared to which—in the perspective of what actually molds and marks the daily lives of Catholics, in keeping with the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi—Bergoglio’s acts were like a kitten making muffins. Whatever errors or crimes Francis committed, he never radically changed every single rite performed by the Catholic Church in its public worship. That alone places Montini in a category all by himself. Incalculably more harm has come and will come to Catholics from the liturgical reform than from anything Bergoglio ever did or said.

There are also ways in which the chief architect of the Novus Ordo, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, was more radical than either of them—as when he wanted to “reform” the Rosary by cutting down its useless repetition, a piece of insane effrontery that even one as sympathetic to reform as Montini quashed like a mosquito. (I give the full story of that episode elsewhere.)

However, there is a key area in which Bergoglio is more radical than Montini, and Montini than Bugnini.