Pope Paul VI on Liturgical Reform

Pope Paul VI on Palm Sunday, 1966, about to celebrate
a vernacularized version of the 1962 rite

 

He certainly did not think his new liturgy was blindsiding people:

"In 1911 Saint Pius X brought out a new Breviary which had been prepared at his command. The tradition of the early Church of reciting the whole of the 150 psalms every week was restored, and the whole method of dividing up the psalter was revised so as to avoid repetition, and a way was devised of combining the ferial psalter and the continuous reading of the Bible with the offices of the saints. In addition the Sunday office was raised in dignity so that it usually took precedence over the feasts of saints.  

"The whole work of restoring the Sacred Liturgy was undertaken by Pius XII. A new transla­tion of the psalter was made by the Pontifical Biblical Institute and he allowed this to be used in public and private recitation of the Office. In 1947 he set up a special Commission to examine the whole question of the Breviary, and a questionnaire about it was sent to the bishops of the world in 1955. The first fruits of the work were seen in the decree of 23 March 1955 simplify­ing the rubrics, and in the regulations about the Breviary in the Code of Rubrics published by John XXIII in 1960. But when he authorized part of the liturgical renewal in this way, Pope John XXIII realized that more investigation was needed into the fundamental principles govern­ing the Sacred Liturgy, and so he entrusted this work to the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican which he had convoked. As a result the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy dealt at such length and in such depth with the whole matter, and especially with the Church’s daily prayer, as had hardly ever before happened in the history of the Church." —Canticum Laudis, November 1st, 1970 (Apostolic Constitution promulgating Liturgia Horarum)