Annibale Bugnini

Italian Vincentian and archbishop

Annibale Bugnini (14 June 1912 – 3 July 1982) was a Catholic prelate. Ordained in 1936 and named archbishop in 1972, he was secretary of the commission that worked on the reform of the Roman Rite that followed the Second Vatican Council. Remaining a controversial figure, both critics and proponents of the changes made to the Mass, the Liturgy of the hours and other liturgical practices before and after Vatican II consider him a dominant force in these efforts. He held several other posts in the Roman Curia and ended his career as papal nuncio to Iran, where he acted as an intermediary during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981.

Annibale Bugnini was born in Civitella del Lago in Umbria. He completed his doctorate in sacred theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Angelicum in 1938 with a dissertation entitled De liturgia eiusque momento in Concilio Tridentino. He spent ten years in parish work in a suburb of Rome. On 25 January 1959, Pope John XXIII announced his plan to convene the Second Vatican Council. On 6 June 1960 Fr. Bugnini was named secretary of the Pontifical Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy. This body produced the first drafts of the document that, after many changes, would become the council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (1963). When the council convened in October 1962, the Preparatory Commission was succeeded by the Conciliar Commission on the Sacred Liturgy, on which Bugnini was assigned the role of a peritus (expert). At the same time, Bugnini was removed from the chair of Liturgy at the Pontifical Lateran University because, in the words of Piero Marini, "his liturgical ideas were seen as too progressive." In his posthumously published memoirs, Second Vatican Council consultant Louis Bouyer called Bugnini "a man as bereft of culture as he was of basic honesty." The council and Pope Paul VI approved the Constitution on the Liturgy on 4 December 1963. On 30 January 1964, the Pope appointed Bugnini secretary of the Council for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy. Bugnini was appointed the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship by Pope Paul in May 1969. In January 1965, he had become an undersecretary in the Congregation of Rites responsible for causes for beatification and canonization.

On 4 January 1976, Pope Paul named Bugnini pro nuncio to Iran. Bugnini studied the country, its history, and traditions. The results of his researches appeared in 1981 as La Chiesa in Iran (The Church in Iran). In 1979, Bugnini tried unsuccessfully to obtain, in the name of the Pope, the release of the American hostages being held at the United States embassy by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He met with Khomeini to deliver Pope John Paul II's appeal for the release of the hostages.

Bugnini died of natural causes at the Pope Pius XI Clinic in Rome on 3 July 1982. His detailed account of the work to which he devoted most of his career, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948 1975, appeared posthumously. An English translation was published in 1990.

The oft repeated allegation of Bugnini's being a Freemason, was first made in print by Italian essayist Tito Casini in his book Nel Fumo di Satana. Verso l'ultimo scontro (Florence: Il carro di San Giovanni, 1976). Casini claimed that according to an anonymous source, Bugnini left a briefcase in a conference room. When someone found it and attempted to identify the owner, incriminating documents were within. English writer Michael Davies claimed that Pope Paul VI's sending of Bugnini to Iran as nuncio was due to this alleged revelation of Bugnini's Masonic affiliation, though the task of his post Vatican II congregation had just been completed (supra). Davies further claimed that an unnamed, conservative cardinal had told him in 1975 that he had "seen (or placed) on the pope's desk" a "dossier" containing evidence of Bugnini's Freemason connection. In The Reform of the Liturgy 1948 1975, Bugnini staunchly denied such allegations, dismissing the as nothing more than slander. The accusation was renewed in 1992 by the traditionalist Catholic magazine Chiesa Viva and in 1999 by an anonymous phamphlet.