THE New Oxford Review, a monthly with a conservative take on many issues in the post-Vatican II church, recently reviewed Nicola Giampietro’s The Development of the Liturgical Reform: As Seen by Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli from 1948 to 1970 (Roman Catholic Books, 348 pages, $33.75).Antonelli was a liturgist and Vatican official who from 1948 onwards had been intimately involved with the ongoing liturgical reforms that began during the reign of Pius XII and culminated with the Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI in 1969. Indeed, in his capacity as Secretary of the Congregation of Rites, Antonelli had countersigned the 1969 decree promulgating the New Mass.
The review, by Arthur C. Sippo, caught my eye for several reasons. I had consulted Giampietro’s book in researching my own book on the New Mass, Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI, which prominently features a quote from Antonelli’s memoirs: “In the liturgy, every word and every gesture conveys a theological idea.”read...