As tensions continue to escalate within the Church between those who wish to preserve the Catholic faith and those who wish to destroy it, it is always refreshing to find someone who can inspire us to fight for our faith. Roberto de Mattei is in my mind one of those individuals who through his writings and talks truly inspires one to live and fight for our faith.
Roberto de Mattei is the President of the Lepanto Foundation, a former professor at the University of Rome, writer on Rorate Caeli and One Peter 5, and notable historian and author of many books including three important publications in English which I highly recommend, The Second Vatican Council - An Unwritten Story, Love for the Papacy and Filial Resistance to the Pope in the History of the Church, and his most recent in English, Apologia for Tradition. I hope that he publishes more of his work in English.
I believe that Professor de Mattei offers valuable insight into the crisis we face in the Church today by pulling from historical sources demonstrating how the Church has weathered many severe, yet seldom known storms in the past. Rather than cursing the darkness he provides us hope and inspiration to not only fight for the faith but the courage to live the faith in an age of apostasy.
Being "a disciple of Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira" whom he knew for over 20 years he understands what it means to fight the revolutionary uprising in the Church which has taken hold over the past 50 plus years. For those unfamiliar with Plinio, he was instrumental in Brazil for organizing what he viewed as a Counter-Revolution within the Church. Plinio once said, "I am a convinced Thomist. The aspect of philosophy that most attracts me is the philosophy of history. In view of this I find the connection between the two kinds of activity to which I have dedicated my life: study and action. I have exercised the latter in a very defined field, the diffusion of doctrine, carried out sometimes in the manner of dialogue, other times — and I say this readily, anachronistic as the thing and the word may seem — with polemics."
While a more in-depth article is necessary to do justice to Plinio's idea of Counter-Revolution, here is a basic outline of his thought.
Principal Doctrinal Elements of Revolution and Counter-Revolution
All this being said, I recapitulate here the principle doctrinal elements on which I based Revolution and Counter-Revolution:
a) the mission of the Church as the only master, guide, and fount of life of the peoples advancing toward the perfect civilization;
b) the continuous opposition of the disordered passions, especially pride and sensuality, to the influence of the Church;
c) the existence of two opposing poles in the human spirit, towards one of which it necessarily heads: on one side, the Catholic Faith, which instills love for order, austerity, and hierarchy; on the other, the disordered passions, which provoke immodesty and revolts against law, hierarchy, and any form of inequality, and which finally lead to doubt and entire denial of the Faith;
d) the notion of a process — the expression understood without prejudice to the free will — by which individuals or peoples, feeling the attraction of the two opposing poles, gradually draw nearer one and away from the other.
e) the influence of this moral process over the development of doctrines. Bad tendencies incline toward error, good tendencies toward truth. The great modifications of the spirit of peoples are not the mere result of doctrines elaborated by small retreats of intellectuals serenely elucubrating at the margins of society. For a doctrine to find resonance in a people it is usually necessary that people have an affinity for the doctrine. And it is not rare that the very lucubrations made by the learned in their studies is influenced more than one thinks by these appetites for the ambience in which they themselves live.
Some Fundamental Definitions
Having all this in sight, it is easy to define the fundamental concepts of Order, Revolution, and Counter-Revolution:
1) Order: not only the methodical and practical disposition of material things but, corresponding to the Thomist concept, the upright disposition of things according to their proximate and remote physical, metaphysical, natural, and supernatural end;
2) Revolution: not essentially a riot in the streets, a volley of gunfire, or a civil war, but every effort that aims to dispose beings against Order;
3) Counter-Revolution: every effort that aims to circumscribe and eliminate the Revolution.
In light of this Counter-Revolution then we find Roberto de Mattei carrying the torch if you will in continuing to promote this fight for the Catholic faith first within the Church and then of course for the evangelization of society. Thus, we see him in his latest book appeal to the strength of Tradition within the Church which spans not only our time within a unifying body of bishops in communion with the pope but also one that spans across the entire spectrum of time as a unifying body, the Saints and Church Fathers included. Tradition being objective Revelation is then is able to resolve conflicts of any age because it reaches beyond the current age and offers the perennial Magisterial teaching of the Church. You can learn more about this in his book 'Apologia for Tradition', in which he pulls largely from the scholastic theologian Melchior Cano to prove his thesis. I just finished it and I will be doing a book review on it soon.
Roberto also sees the problems with the implementation of Vatican II which is largely responsible for the revolution in the Church. He also sees the problems with the revolutionary mindset of Pope Francis which seeks as Pope Francis himself has said, "to change the Church." De Mattei however dos not take the sedevacantist route but rather seeks to resist the errors being promulgated remaining within the Church, which is in my eyes the responsible thing to do. Just as Saint Athanasius and Saint Maximus the Confessor did not leave and start their own hierarchical church in the midst of crisis, so we must also imitate their courageous behavior and resist error.
Roberto de Mattei offers us an inspirational model to learn our Catholic history and our Catholic faith so that we may join in this Counter-Revolution in the Church one person at a time. This is the time for the laity to stand up and profess the one true faith and make it known that we will not stand by idly while it is taken away from us!
I also recommend watching these two interview videos from LifeSite in which Professor de Mattei explains the crisis in the Church. Pick up the three books I have linked above; you will be better equipped for the Counter-Revolution for doing so!
Video Part I
Video Part II
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| Roberto de Mattei |
Roberto de Mattei is the President of the Lepanto Foundation, a former professor at the University of Rome, writer on Rorate Caeli and One Peter 5, and notable historian and author of many books including three important publications in English which I highly recommend, The Second Vatican Council - An Unwritten Story, Love for the Papacy and Filial Resistance to the Pope in the History of the Church, and his most recent in English, Apologia for Tradition. I hope that he publishes more of his work in English.
I believe that Professor de Mattei offers valuable insight into the crisis we face in the Church today by pulling from historical sources demonstrating how the Church has weathered many severe, yet seldom known storms in the past. Rather than cursing the darkness he provides us hope and inspiration to not only fight for the faith but the courage to live the faith in an age of apostasy.
Being "a disciple of Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira" whom he knew for over 20 years he understands what it means to fight the revolutionary uprising in the Church which has taken hold over the past 50 plus years. For those unfamiliar with Plinio, he was instrumental in Brazil for organizing what he viewed as a Counter-Revolution within the Church. Plinio once said, "I am a convinced Thomist. The aspect of philosophy that most attracts me is the philosophy of history. In view of this I find the connection between the two kinds of activity to which I have dedicated my life: study and action. I have exercised the latter in a very defined field, the diffusion of doctrine, carried out sometimes in the manner of dialogue, other times — and I say this readily, anachronistic as the thing and the word may seem — with polemics."
While a more in-depth article is necessary to do justice to Plinio's idea of Counter-Revolution, here is a basic outline of his thought.
Principal Doctrinal Elements of Revolution and Counter-Revolution
All this being said, I recapitulate here the principle doctrinal elements on which I based Revolution and Counter-Revolution:
a) the mission of the Church as the only master, guide, and fount of life of the peoples advancing toward the perfect civilization;
b) the continuous opposition of the disordered passions, especially pride and sensuality, to the influence of the Church;
c) the existence of two opposing poles in the human spirit, towards one of which it necessarily heads: on one side, the Catholic Faith, which instills love for order, austerity, and hierarchy; on the other, the disordered passions, which provoke immodesty and revolts against law, hierarchy, and any form of inequality, and which finally lead to doubt and entire denial of the Faith;
d) the notion of a process — the expression understood without prejudice to the free will — by which individuals or peoples, feeling the attraction of the two opposing poles, gradually draw nearer one and away from the other.
e) the influence of this moral process over the development of doctrines. Bad tendencies incline toward error, good tendencies toward truth. The great modifications of the spirit of peoples are not the mere result of doctrines elaborated by small retreats of intellectuals serenely elucubrating at the margins of society. For a doctrine to find resonance in a people it is usually necessary that people have an affinity for the doctrine. And it is not rare that the very lucubrations made by the learned in their studies is influenced more than one thinks by these appetites for the ambience in which they themselves live.
Some Fundamental Definitions
Having all this in sight, it is easy to define the fundamental concepts of Order, Revolution, and Counter-Revolution:
1) Order: not only the methodical and practical disposition of material things but, corresponding to the Thomist concept, the upright disposition of things according to their proximate and remote physical, metaphysical, natural, and supernatural end;
2) Revolution: not essentially a riot in the streets, a volley of gunfire, or a civil war, but every effort that aims to dispose beings against Order;
3) Counter-Revolution: every effort that aims to circumscribe and eliminate the Revolution.
In light of this Counter-Revolution then we find Roberto de Mattei carrying the torch if you will in continuing to promote this fight for the Catholic faith first within the Church and then of course for the evangelization of society. Thus, we see him in his latest book appeal to the strength of Tradition within the Church which spans not only our time within a unifying body of bishops in communion with the pope but also one that spans across the entire spectrum of time as a unifying body, the Saints and Church Fathers included. Tradition being objective Revelation is then is able to resolve conflicts of any age because it reaches beyond the current age and offers the perennial Magisterial teaching of the Church. You can learn more about this in his book 'Apologia for Tradition', in which he pulls largely from the scholastic theologian Melchior Cano to prove his thesis. I just finished it and I will be doing a book review on it soon.
Roberto also sees the problems with the implementation of Vatican II which is largely responsible for the revolution in the Church. He also sees the problems with the revolutionary mindset of Pope Francis which seeks as Pope Francis himself has said, "to change the Church." De Mattei however dos not take the sedevacantist route but rather seeks to resist the errors being promulgated remaining within the Church, which is in my eyes the responsible thing to do. Just as Saint Athanasius and Saint Maximus the Confessor did not leave and start their own hierarchical church in the midst of crisis, so we must also imitate their courageous behavior and resist error.
Roberto de Mattei offers us an inspirational model to learn our Catholic history and our Catholic faith so that we may join in this Counter-Revolution in the Church one person at a time. This is the time for the laity to stand up and profess the one true faith and make it known that we will not stand by idly while it is taken away from us!
I also recommend watching these two interview videos from LifeSite in which Professor de Mattei explains the crisis in the Church. Pick up the three books I have linked above; you will be better equipped for the Counter-Revolution for doing so!
Video Part I
Video Part II
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