Msgr. Bugnini: 'We Made the Liturgy Pleasing to Heretics'

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Msgr. Bugnini: 'We Made the Liturgy Pleasing to Heretics'

TIA [slightly adapted and reformatted, emphasis in the original] | November 1, 2025

In 2011, a reader made a correction to one of our quotes of Msgr. Annibale Bugnini, architect of the New Mass, in which he was purported to have said this about the liturgical reform: "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."

It turns out that this quote was a summary of a larger quote. Queen of Martyrs Press kindly uploaded a scanned photocopy of the original newspaper clipping, which gives us the full text of Bugnini's words. We reproduce the original document, which has the same meaning of the commonly used summary. His words make it evident that he planned to destroy the liturgy and make it pleasing to the Church's enemies.

In the March 19, 1965, edition of L'Osservatore Romano, Bugnini wrote about some of the changes made to the prayers of Good Friday. In the excerpt below right, Bugnini reveals the reason behind this and many other changes, affirming in clear words that the goal of the Liturgical Reform was to make the liturgy as pleasing as possible to heretics, a goal that was born specifically from the ecumenical climate of Vatican Council II.

The translated text can be read below left column, taken from the highlighted sections in yellow, below right. A larger copy can be read here.

Msgr. Annibale Bugnini

In the ecumenical climate of the Second Vatican Council, it has been noted in many quarters that some expressions of the Orationes Solemnes of Good Friday sound pretty bad [or "rather off"] today. It has therefore been persistently asked whether it would be possible to attenuate [or "tone down"] some of the phrases.

It is always regrettable to have to touch venerable texts, which have nurtured, so effectively, Christian piety, and which still retain the spiritual fragrance of the early Christian ages of the Church. Above all, it is difficult to retouch literary masterpieces of unsurpassed form and conceptuality. Nevertheless, it was deemed necessary to undertake the work, so that no one would experience spiritual discomfort in the prayer of the Church.

The revisions were limited to what was absolutely necessary... The seventh prayer bears the title: "For the unity of Christians" (not "of the Church," which has always been one). We no longer speak of "heretics" and "schimatics," but of "all brothers who believe in Christ." The complete text says: [he provides some of the new texts, the new prayers V, VI and VII mentioned above]

Scholars will consider and highlight the biblical and liturgical sources from which the new texts, carefully crafted by the Consilium Study Groups, derive or draw inspiration. And let us also note that the work has often proceeded "with fear and trembling," having to sacrifice much-loved expressions and concepts, now long familiar.

How could we not regret, for example, the "ad sanctam matrem Ecclesiam catolicam atque apostolicam revocare dignetur" ["and recall them to our holy mother the Catholic and Apostolic Church"] of the seventh prayer? And yet, love for souls and the desire to facilitate in every way the path of union with our separated brothers, removing every stone that might even remotely constitute a stumbling block or cause for discomfort, have led the Church even to these painful sacrifices."

(L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965, p.6)