Eye-witness accounts reveal that, besides the ubiquitous singing of the Mass by the people, (5) they cheered and clapped for the celebrities; at the Offertory “the hosts were carried up to the altar in a hundred big baskets”; (6) and everyone held hands at the Our Father. (7) None of this should come as a surprise, for Card. Joseph Wendel had for years been committed to liturgical reform in his diocese. (8) 

This contrasted with the solemn High Mass that opened the Council on October 11, 1962. Fr. Josef Jungmann, who was present, was disappointed that his dreams for a “community Mass” had not been put into action. He complained later: “The opening did not please me. … they haven’t learned anything from the statio orbis in Munich.” 

In his opinion the fact that the Mass was carried out “correctly” in accordance with the rubrics was wrong; it resembled “the style of Leo XIII”; it was accompanied by “good church music,” which did not facilitate congregational singing; the people did not recite the prayers aloud; and there was no distribution of Communion. (9) 

The standard explanation as to why Munich was chosen for the International Eucharistic Congress – that Pius XII once spent time there as papal Nuncio – is simply a red herring. The sudden and unexpected switch of venues, which Card. Wendel persuaded Pius XII to make in 1955, can now be explained against the background of the Cardinal’s overweening ambition to renew the face of Catholicism in Munich and present the International Congress as a world premier in liturgical renewal. This was the subject of his 1956 New Year’s Eve sermon that launched the preparations for the Congress. (10)