Interesting revelations have surfaced about Paul VI's personal reactions to the reform he promoted. Fr. Hunwicke at
http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.co.uk/ writes:-
"I hope readers will have seen the article in the
Settimo Cielo Blog,
concerning new information about what Blessed Paul VI really thought
concerning the liturgical 'reforms' which Hannibal Bugnini deceived him
into approving.
Paolo VI. Una storia minima, by Mgr Leonardo
Sapienza, clearly contains reliable archival information about Papa
Montini and the years in which he uneasily used the Liturgy he had
himself authorised. Sapienza publishes diaries in which Virgilio Noe,
then the Master of Pontifical Ceremonies, noted the daily remarks of the
Pontiff. This looks to me like another piece of a jigsaw which has been
forming in my mind for some time.
This source sits very comfortably beside the account given by Montini's friend Louis Bouyer.
It renders more believable the well-known story about Pope Paul's surprise that he had abolished the Pentecost Octave.
It also fits neatly into the account given by Dom Cassian Folsom a few years ago in
Adoremus;
in which he meticulously demonstrated that the disastrous events (such
as the authorisation of alternative 'Eucharistic Prayers') by which the
Roman Rite was so horribly corrupted, were the result of the Pontiff
being persuaded that the liturgical chaos throughout the liberal West
(at that time, more than 200 rogue EPs were circulating unauthorised,
for example) could only be brought under any sort of control by a very
limited number of alternative Eucharistic Prayers, under the careful
direction of Rome, being permitted.
Another important piece of the jigsaw is contained in the fine biography
of Archbishop Lefebvre by His Excellency Bishop Tissier de Mallerais.
This demonstrates that Pope Paul's mind could only be poisoned against
the Archbishop by the gross and palpable lies which his enemies put into
the pope's ears. They assured Paul that, in the SSPX, the Old Mass was
promoted simply as a banner of anti-papal rebellion; that Lefebvre made
his seminarians swear an oath against the pope. In other words, those
evil and mendacious men realised that affection for the Mass of Ages
would,
of itself, be insufficient to corrupt Montini's view of the Great Archbishop. God forgive them for what they did.
Indeed, Papa Montini was, in the words of his predecessor,
un po' amletico.
He is not one of my heroes. All the same ... and I know some readers
will disagree with me ... my personal judgement is that he was not an
evil man, and I am willing to accept the Church's judgement about his
current location. So, as we draw closer to his canonisation, I feel it
is good and timely to begin to come to a more balanced picture on the
man whose weak capitulations to devious men did undoubtedly lead to the
greatest calamity in Latin Christianity since the Reformation. As he
himself perceived (another piece of jigsaw here), the smoke was indeed
of Satan; and Montini's failures arose mainly from his poor judgements
upon those competing for his ear.
When Pope Paul learned the truth, he lost little time in heaving
Bugnini, mitre, zucchetto, (?)apron and all, out of Rome, and over the
hills and far away. That I regard as the final piece of the jigsaw.
It is clear that in some circles, this canonisation is being promoted
as a political move to fasten down upon the Church a particular
understanding of Vatican II, indeed, a hermeneutic Magisterially
condemned by Benedict XVI. In God's providence, it may be that a fuller
understanding of the real Paul VI will frustrate that knavish trick.
Does anybody seriously think that the author of Humanae vitae would have favoured a regime bent upon promoting the acceptability of habitual Adultery?"