Everything was done by clerics, who were incessantly talking about ‘democracy in the Church’, affirming that this was reclaimed by a ‘People of God’, whom no one, however, had bothered to consult. The people, you know, are sovereign; they must be respected, indeed, venerated, but only if they accept the views that are dictated by the political, social, or even religious ruling class. If they do not agree with those who have the power to determine the line to be taken, they must be reeducated according to the vision of the triumphant ideology of the moment. For me, who had just knocked at the door of the Church, gladly welcoming stabilitas—which is so attractive and consoling to those who have known only the world’s precariousness— that destruction of a patrimony of millennia took me by surprise and seemed to me more anachronistic than modern.
–Vittorio Messori, preface to Benedict XVI’s Reform: The Liturgy Between Innovation and Tradition (by Nicolas Bux)