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OME PEOPLE will go to their graves not understanding the distinction between CORRELATION & CAUSALITY. I stumbled upon a recent example posted on an infamous and pitiful website we cannot not link to (for obvious reasons).
They have written:
In 1948, Pope Pius XII established a Commission for Liturgical Reform, appointing Fr. Annibale Bugnini as secretary. Remember that name, for Father (later Archbishop Bugnini) would eventually be revealed as a Freemason and denounced to Paul VI, who immediately removed him from his positions of authority on Vatican commissions and sent him away, eventually to die in exile in Iran.
Leave aside his erroneous statements, 1 made in a tone characteristic of that website. The author presents a correlation as if it were cause-effect. A similar thing is done in the upper right corner.
It is true that Bugnini was accused of being a freemason—and if memory serves, a dossier was presented to the Pope—but I believe the Pope rejected its contents. Many feel that Pope Paul VI eventually lost confidence in Bugnini, taking “revenge” upon him by sending him to Iran, but my understanding is that this happened years after the dossier was presented. In any event, my object here is not to argue—I have more important things to worry about. I merely note that the author presented no evidence whatsoever of a cause-effect relationship. 2
THE TRUTH WOULD BE BETTER SERVED by simply recounting the (troubling) facts. Listen to what Cardinal Antonelli says about the Consilium of Pope Paul VI:
Often the schemata arrive just before the discussions. Sometimes, and in important matters, such as the new anaphoras, the schema was distributed the evening before the discussion was to take place. […] Father Bugnini has only one interest: press ahead and finish.
The voting system is worse. It is ordinarily done by a show of hands, but nobody counts who has raised a hand and who has not. Nobody says “so many approved” and “so many said no.” It is disgraceful. Although the question has been asked several times, nobody has succeeded in ascertaining whether the necessary majority must be absolute or two thirds of the votes. A further grave lacuna is the absence of any minutes of the meetings. There certainly has been no reference to them and they certainly have never been read. (SOURCE)
NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:
1 Bugnini died in Rome, not Iran. Moreover, he was not “exiled”—he served as papal nuncio.
2 As someone who worked at a Cathedral for four years, I can say that it is often difficult to ascertain the true reason for a cleric being moved. Sometimes, the reason given for a transfer is a lie. Frequently, the only thing we can know for certain is that a transfer was made—not why it happened.
