A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal by Piero Marini (review)

Book Reviews Piero Marini A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2007 205 pages. $15.95. In freshman year of high school in a mythology course, I was introduced to the expression that something had “emerged full-blown from the brow of Zeus.” I have never really encountered a situation that fully realized the meaning of the line – until reading this book. One could also have recourse to a more biblical/liturgical image by saying that it resembles Melchizedek, with his unknown origins. Why do I suggest such metaphors? First, the author is supposedly Archbishop Piero Marini, until recently papal master of ceremonies, an Italian, whose spoken English is rather good but who clearly could not have produced this work in English. Second, there is no Italian editio typica. Third, a team of “editors” is noted (about which, more later), but we never discover just what their role was: Was there a kind of Italian “Q” document, which they translated into English? Did they compose the text out of whole cloth, relying on interviews with Marini and incorporating the various documents he shared with them? Fourth, Marini’s name is never mentioned anywhere in the book, not even in a rather comprehensive index of names, although he was the protégé and secretary of none other than Father Annibale Bugnini – the hero of the volume. Fifth, the book almost spontaneously appeared just after the departure of Marini from the ceremonies post; somewhat oddly, the title page has the following below the author’s name: “Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies, 1987-2007.” To a generation like mine, growing up under the influence of form and redaction criticism, inquiring minds will want to know more about the origins of this work. The editorial team could never be accused of harboring any right-wing tendencies; indeed, all three have contributed mightily to orientations and causes that have advanced the “rupture” (in contradistinction to the “continuity”) approach to liturgical reform. The work’s endorsements by hierarchs and liturgists likewise give no evidence of any attempt at an “inclusive” or “consensus-building” model of scholarship and praxis. Much the same would have to be said about those who attended the book-release and book-signing events in London; not without reason, then, did some commentators refer to it as a “liturgical lovefest.” Interestingly, an American counterpart to Antiphon 13.1 (2009) 85 Book Reviews the debut in England was precipitously cancelled, with no attempt at offering a serious rationale for the cancellation, leading to speculation that several American bishops expressed grave reservations about the harm such a tour could do to what some see as an emerging period of liturgical peace in the United States. Now, to the book itself. It follows closely the genre exemplified by Bugnini’s memoirs (A. Bugnini, La riforma liturgica 1948-1975, 1983), the biggest difference being that Bugnini writes in the first person singular or plural, demonstrating his total involvement in the project. The format is that of a diary, for all practical purposes, moving from the “idea” of the Consilium (the body deputed by Pope Paul VI in 1964 to implement the liturgical vision put forth by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum concilium) to its birth and then the various activities in which it engaged, along with the documents it produced. Many parts read like an espionage novel as the author discusses the intrigue that accompanied each new level of authority accorded the Consilium or the power it wrested from existing Curial bodies. A most tiresome and unprofessional aspect of the book is the “good guys vs. bad guys” or “black hats vs. white hats” rhetoric: Not a single “liberal” is ever cast in an unfavorable light, while not a single “conservative” is ever portrayed as anything but reactionary, grasping for power, even theologically benighted. (At one point, Marini feels compelled to place the word “theologian” in quotes when referring to Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, prefect of the Holy Office and, arguably, one of the most brilliant bishop-theologians at Vatican II.) On substantive matters, the volume is even more disappointing. Marini informs us that in the preparatory...