Michael Matt: ‘Christ is the Head of the Church, Not the Pope!’

Still trying to uphold the Faith by denying it…

Michael Matt: ‘Christ is the Head of the Church, Not the Pope!’

On Nov. 13, 2025, the recognize-and-resist flagship The Remnant published an editorial by its editor, Michael J. Matt, entitled “Latin Mass Returns to Pope’s Basilica”. It had also appeared two weeks earlier in the newspaper’s Oct. 31 print issue.

“This, obviously, is the beginning of the loosening of restrictions on the Latin Mass, a step in the right direction”, Matt opens optimistically, and no doubt he felt even more vindicated when he was able to post this added note to the online version of the article:

Since the following editorial appeared in The Remnant Newspaper’s October 31st issue, news has reached us that further permissions for the traditional Latin Mass being offered in the Basilica of Saint Peter are now in the works. In addition, Pope Leo has granted permission to the bishops of England and Wales to allow the traditional Latin Mass at their discretion.

Nevertheless, there have been subsequent developments since, and now the matter is characteristically unclear. Here is a brief chronology:

November 14

November 15

The colorful Ann Barnhardt, meanwhile, has warned that if Leo is granting two-year extensions for the Traditional Latin Mass to any bishop who makes the request, then it will be nothing short of a trap, a veritable “SELF-REPORTING SYSTEM whereby bishops who have the tiniest sympathy for actual Catholicism will SELF-REPORT by requesting ‘two year extensions’ for the offering of the Holy and August Sacrifice of the Mass….”

In any case, the title of Matt’s editorial, “Latin Mass Returns to Pope’s Basilica”, refers to ‘Cardinal’ Raymond Burke‘s offering of the Traditional Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 25 as part of this year’s Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage. It is being called a “return” of the Old Mass to St. Peter’s Basilica, not because ‘Pope’ Francis had forbidden it in the prior two years but because, reportedly, no one had dared ask him for permission in the first place, and so no permission was granted where none had been requested in 2023 and ’24.

In comments that must seem utterly patronizing to Leo XIV, should he ever come across them, Matt writes:

What must be kept in mind is that there is a war between God and Satan going on inside the Church right now. There is not going to be a clear and easy path of restoration, just as there is not going to be a clear and easy path of destruction.

Yes, the Mass matters! Keep the faith, don’t lose hope, and continue to pray for Pope Leo, that he will be given the grace to recognize and resist the diabolical forces which at this very moment are at work against him inside the Vatican. Yes, Pope Leo was formed in the Novus Ordo, and so it is going to be more difficult for him to see the perils that he now faces. All the more so, then, we must pray for him!

There is a lot more Matt says along these lines, but we cannot quote it all here. Perhaps he doesn’t realize it, but his write-up exemplifies one of the chief reasons Francis gave for issuing the Latin-Mass-suppressing motu proprio letter Traditionis Custodes in the first place. As the false pope from Buenos Aires wrote in his accompanying letter to bishops:

A final reason for my decision is this: ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican Council II and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the “true Church.” One is dealing here with comportment that contradicts communion and nurtures the divisive tendency — “I belong to Paul; I belong instead to Apollo; I belong to Cephas; I belong to Christ” — against which the Apostle Paul so vigorously reacted. In defense of the unity of the Body of Christ, I am constrained to revoke the faculty granted by my Predecessors. The distorted use that has been made of this faculty is contrary to the intentions that led to granting the freedom to celebrate the Mass with the Missale Romanum of 1962. Because “liturgical celebrations are not private actions, but celebrations of the Church, which is the sacrament of unity”, they must be carried out in communion with the Church. Vatican Council II, while it reaffirmed the external bonds of incorporation in the Church — the profession of faith, the sacraments, of communion — affirmed with St. Augustine that to remain in the Church not only “with the body” but also “with the heart” is a condition for salvation.

(“Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the Whole World that Accompanies the Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Data ‘Traditionis Custodes'”, July 16, 2021)

For Matt and his semi-trad confreres, the entire conciliar and post-conciliar church with its abominable liturgy, false teachings, and impious laws must be thrown to the junkyard of ecclesiastical history. In this, they are not wrong, of course — but they then spoil everything by insisting that the authorities that gave us all these evil things are the true, valid, and lawful Roman Catholic hierarchy! That is the “little leaven [that] corrupteth the whole lump” (1 Cor 5:6).

Either way, however, as evil a man as Francis was, one cannot blame him — if one considers the matter from the Vatican II Church’s own perspective — for withdrawing concessions for the Traditional Mass if organizations like The Remnant and Catholic Family News (to give but two examples) continually use the availability of that Mass in a way that criticizes, contradicts, and rejects the Vatican II Church. Why should the Vatican II Church aid and abet its own demise?

Leo XIV himself shares Francis’ view in that regard, as he revealed in an interview with Elise Ann Allen:

Obviously, between the Tridentine Mass and the Vatican II Mass, the Mass of Paul VI, I’m not sure where that’s going to go. It’s obviously very complicated.

I do know that part of that issue, unfortunately, has become – again, part of a process of polarization – people have used the liturgy as an excuse for advancing other topics. It’s become a political tool, and that’s very unfortunate.

(“Pope Leo speaks to Crux’s Elise Ann Allen about LGBTQ+ issues and the liturgy”, Crux, Sep. 18, 2025)

Alas, Matt forgot to mention that that, too, is part of Leo’s record on the Traditional Latin Mass.

The Remnant also failed to tell readers that St. Peter’s Basilica remains desecrated (or profaned) on account of the perverts’ march through the Holy Door on Sep. 6, on account of which it is strictly forbidden to offer Holy Mass there until the building has been reconciled in the way specified by canon law.

Matt continues:

So, why did [Leo XIV] give permission for Cardinal Burke to celebrate the Latin Mass in his own Basilica, just months after the death of Francis—the very pope who had banned it? The short answer is that God willed it to be so. As a product of the long Revolution of Vatican II, Pope Leo is not trying to fool us, and neither is he trying to silence or seduce us. He has all the power, and we have none. So, something else is clearly at work here, something larger than any pope.

Now that is a rather biased way of looking at things. One could just as well say that the reason Leo gave permission is that he had been asked for it very nicely. Whether Leo is trying to fool anyone is quite simply not known to Michael Matt, so his conviction that he is definitely not trying to fool them is gratuitous. Yes, Matt can argue that “God willed it to be so”, but if memory serves right, that is not the argument he made when Francis dropped the hammer with Traditionis Custodes.

Throughout his article, Matt repeats that “it is the Mass that matters”. And yes, of course the Mass matters. However, the end does not ever justify the means. Nothing is gained if, in order to obtain the Mass, one must deny the Faith, for example. On the contrary, then all is lost! For, as the late Fr. Anthony Cekada used to say, one can save one’s soul without ever having access to a Traditional Latin Mass; one cannot, however, save one’s soul without the true Catholic Faith. “But without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6a).

There is another crucial detail here that must not be overlooked. When The Remnant tells its readers that it’s “the Mass that matters”, they don’t mean the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass per se. Rather, they are talking about a particular rite of Mass. After all, they are not fighting for greater access to the Maronite, Armenian, Byzantine, Mozarabic, or Dominican rites but specifically for the pre-Vatican II Roman rite (strictly speaking, it is the 1962 Missal they have in mind, promulgated by the false pope John XXIII; but for the purposes of this post, we can let that slide).

There is no question that the pre-Vatican II Roman rite of Mass is most ancient and most venerable; however, what is even more important than a particular rite of Holy Mass is communion with the Roman Pontiff, for salvation depends on it. In his encyclical on the Sacred Liturgy issued in 1947, Pope Pius XII made clear that “the Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, as also to modify those he judges to require modification” (Mediator Dei, n. 58). More information on that can be found here:

The idea that Pope St. Pius V’s Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum (1570) somehow ‘canonized’ the Roman rite and effectively made it impossible for the Mass to be changed, is very popular in recognize-and-resist (and even some sedevacantist) circles, but it is not correct. The matter is discussed in detail here:

But are we saying, then, that the New Mass of Paul VI must be accepted? No, not at all. We are merely clarifying that one cannot use the “The Mass can never change because of Quo Primum” argument to say that the promulgation of the New Mass was unlawful or invalid. Yes, the rite of Mass could change — Pope Pius XII himself said so — but even a new, changed rite would still have to be entirely orthodox, holy, and Catholic. That is where the New Mass fails. A true Pope could never change the Roman rite into a quasi-Protestant meal service with a Jewish table blessing, which is exactly what Paul VI did. And so the problem with the New Mass is not that it is simply different from the traditional Roman rite but that the new rite is impious, sacrilegious, and harmful.

“I believe it’s a ‘God thing’,” Matt opines further. The Latin Mass “is the most effective counterrevolutionary force on earth. God gave it to us, and only God can take it away”, he says, perhaps in that dramatic tone of voice he likes to use on his Remnant Underground videos. But is it true? Not really. Yes, God Himself instituted the Holy Mass, of course — but the particular rite of Mass was given to us by the Church, and she could modify it. That is not meant to denigrate in any way the ancient Roman rite or its organic development beginning, surely, with the Apostles. It is only meant to provide clarity where zeal for the cause and pious devotion may overstate the case. It is simply not true to say that God Himself gave us the Roman rite of Mass.

Alas, Matt’s theology only gets worse from there.

Under the subheading “Christ is the Head of the Church, Not the Pope!”, the editor of The Remnant writes:

Momentous things are happening in this clash between Revolution and Counterrevolution and between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. We need to fight this Holy War with the tools and the armor God provides. Those of us who have been in these trenches all our lives know what to do. When it comes to the diabolically disordered post-conciliar popes, we must keep a supernatural vision of what is happening to our Church in crisis.

The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, not the mystical body of the Pope. The Church has only one head, Jesus Christ, and it is He—not the pope! —Who made the infallible promise to us that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Catholic Church.

So that appears to be the doctrinal assumption underlying Matt’s “supernatural vision of what is happening” — a monumental doctrinal blunder!

None other than the celebrated Dr. Scott Hahn of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, had made that very argument two years ago in an attempt to reassure Novus Ordos who were losing their minds over the Francis reign. One need not be a friend of Hahn’s feminist and blasphemous theology to give him credit for at least this much: He subsequently had the courage and humility to admit his error and issue a retraction (even if the original video remains online).

Two years latter, Matt offers a new edition of the Hahn howler. That Christ is the Head of the Church is true enough, but does it follow that therefore the Pope isn’t?

In 1849, Pope Pius IX spoke of “the Roman Pontiff, [who] holds a primacy over the whole world and is the true Vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church and father and teacher of all Christians” (Nostis et Nobiscum, n. 16).

In an address given on Jan. 17, 1940, Pope Pius XII said that the “teaching of Peter continues in his successors, and will continue, unchanged, for all time, for this is the mission given by Christ Himself to the head of the Church” (Vi è a Roma).

In his encyclical on the unity of the Church, Pope Leo XIII explained in some detail:

Certainly Christ is a King for ever; and though invisible, He continues unto the end of time to govern and guard His church from Heaven. But since He willed that His kingdom should be visible He was obliged, when He ascended into Heaven, to designate a vice-gerent on earth. “Should anyone say that Christ is the one head and the one shepherd, the one spouse of the one Church, he does not give an adequate reply. It is clear, indeed, that Christ is the author of grace in the Sacraments of the Church; it is Christ Himself who baptizes; it is He who forgives sins; it is He who is the true priest who hath offered Himself upon the altar of the cross, and it is by His power that His body is daily consecrated upon the altar; and still, because He was not to be visibly present to all the faithful, He made choice of ministers through whom the aforesaid Sacraments should be dispensed to the faithful as said above” (cap. 74). “For the same reason, therefore, because He was about to withdraw His visible presence from the Church, it was necessary that He should appoint someone in His place, to have the charge of the Universal Church. Hence before His Ascension He said to Peter: ‘Feed my sheep’” (St. Thomas [Aquinas], Contra Gentiles, lib. iv., cap. 76).

Jesus Christ, therefore, appointed Peter to be that head of the Church; and He also determined that the authority instituted in perpetuity for the salvation of all should be inherited by His successors, in whom the same permanent authority of Peter himself should continue.

(Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis Cognitum, n. 11; underlining added.)

Pope Pius XII elaborated on this in his encyclical on the Mystical Body:

But we must not think that [Christ] rules only in a hidden or extraordinary manner. On the contrary, our Divine Redeemer also governs His Mystical Body in a visible and normal way through His Vicar on earth. You know, Venerable Brethren, that after He had ruled the “little flock” [Lk 12:32] Himself during His mortal pilgrimage, Christ our Lord, when about to leave this world and return to the Father, entrusted to the Chief of the Apostles the visible government of the entire community He had founded. Since He was all wise He could not leave the body of the Church He had founded as a human society without a visible head. Nor against this may one argue that the primacy of jurisdiction established in the Church gives such a Mystical Body two heads. For Peter in virtue of his primacy is only Christ’s Vicar; so that there is only one chief Head of this Body, namely Christ, who never ceases Himself to guide the Church invisible, though at the same time He rules it visibly, through him who is His representative on earth. After His glorious Ascension into heaven this Church rested not on Him alone, but on Peter too, its visible foundation stone. That Christ and His Vicar constitute one only Head is the solemn teaching of Our predecessor of immortal memory Boniface VIII in the Apostolic Letter Unam Sanctam; and his successors have never ceased to repeat the same.

(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, n. 40)

The bull of Pope Boniface VIII, to which Pius XII makes reference, states: “Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter” (Unam Sanctam).

We could multiply quotes like this almost ad infinitum, but the point is made. Just as she has both invisible and visible aspects, so the Catholic Church has an invisible and a visible head; and these are so intertwined that together they constitute one single head. That, in fact, is yet another indicator that the Vatican II ‘popes’ cannot be true Popes. There is simply no way one could reasonably say that Jesus Christ has been guiding and guarding the Church through the official acts of these men.

Alas, although he always talks about defending the Faith, Michael Matt is not a man of doctrine or theology. That explains his blunder, and it explains also the remaining lines of his article, which begin thus:

We need not be constantly fixated on the Pope, whose words and acts on a daily basis are fallible. We need not parse his every word. We must not make him the pivotal point of our life as baptized Christians. For us, the pivotable point is Jesus Christ, especially in the Holy Eucharist and in the daily sacrifice of the altar all throughout the world.

As Fr. Frederick Faber once explained, Catholics ought to cultivate a devotion to the Pope — yes, to the Pope, not only to the Papacy. The sedevacantist priest Fr. Gabriel Lavery, CMRI, once gave a most insightful talk on this very topic: “The Ordinary Magisterium and Devotion to the Pope” (mp3 audio file).

“In her Divine element, the Church is inviolate”, Matt states quite correctly, but then he veers off course again: “The Church in her human element is not, and the reality is that God has allowed some very bad popes, some of whom lived immoral lives or even favored heresies and ambiguities in doctrine.”

As even habitual readers of The Remnant will know, the problem we are facing today is not one of ‘bad’ Popes — as if the personal sins of the Pope could vitiate Christ’s promises for the papal office — nor is it even a problem of a Pope “favoring heresies and ambiguities in doctrine”, as bad as that would be. The situation today is far beyond that. We are talking about the wholesale imposition of a new religion, with its own doctrines, laws, saints, and liturgical and sacramental rites. The Remnant itself has amply documented and chronicled this since its inception in 1967.

So Matt thinks he can save the day by distinguish the Church’s divine element from her human element. The distinction is legitimate, but Matt has still not understood, apparently, that some of what counts for the inviolable divine element is precisely what the Vatican II Church has vitiated (thereby proving it cannot be the Catholic Church). Let’s listen to Pope Pius XII explain the matter:

And if at times there appears in the Church something that indicates the weakness of our human nature, it should not be attributed to her juridical constitution, but rather to that regrettable inclination to evil found in each individual, which its Divine Founder permits even at times in the most exalted members of His Mystical Body, for the purpose of testing the virtue of the shepherds no less than of the flocks, and that all may increase the merit of their Christian faith. For, as We said above, Christ did not wish to exclude sinners from His Church; hence if some of her members are suffering from spiritual maladies, that is no reason why we should lessen our love for the Church, but rather a reason why we should increase our devotion to her members. Certainly the loving Mother is spotless in the Sacraments, by which she gives birth to and nourishes her children; in the faith which she has always preserved inviolate; in her sacred laws imposed on all; in the evangelical counsels which she recommends; in those heavenly gifts and extraordinary graces through which, with inexhaustible fecundity, she generates hosts of martyrs, virgins and confessors. But it cannot be laid to her charge if some members fall, weak or wounded. In their name she prays to God daily: “Forgive us our trespasses”; and with the brave heart of a mother she applies herself at once to the work of nursing them back to spiritual health. When therefore we call the Body of Jesus Christ “mystical,” the very meaning of the word conveys a solemn warning. It is a warning that echoes in these words of St. Leo: “Recognize, O Christian, your dignity, and being made a sharer of the divine nature go not back to your former worthlessness along the way of unseemly conduct. Keep in mind of what Head and of what Body you are a member.”

(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, n. 66)

Note well: Pius XII specifically teaches that the Church is infallible (“spotless”) in her sacraments, in her teaching, and in her universal disciplinary laws (as well as other things). Does Michael Matt accept the sacramental rites of the Vatican II Church? No, he doesn’t; he repudiates them. Does he follow the teachings of the Novus Ordo Sect? No, he doesn’t; he criticizes and resists them. Does he endorse the Novus Ordo Code of Canon Law of 1983? No, he doesn’t; he criticizes its errors.

It’s game over for Mr. Matt, but he keeps playing nonetheless.

As of the time of this writing, the tweet in which Matt promotes his article has 20,000 views. For those who are tempted to ask, “Why do you care?”, the answer is simple: Because, regardless of anyone’s personal intentions, The Remnant is misleading a lot of souls with this false and harmful theology — good-willed, pious souls, souls who love Christ and want nothing more than to be loyal followers of Our Lord and His Church.

If we who, by the grace of God, see through the false traditionalism peddled by The Remnant don’t act and try to mitigate the damage, who will?

“The pope is human. He can sin, he can even go to hell”, Matt reminds his readers, but then he tells a lie: “only neo-Catholics and sedevacantists would say otherwise”. No, they wouldn’t. The sedevacantist position has never been that the Pope is not human, or that he cannot sin, or that he cannot go to hell, and Matt knows it.

The Remnant‘s editor is simply out of steam and out of answers, and it shows. He may try to persuade his readers that for the next 20 years (or however many years we can expect Leo XIV to claim the Chair of St. Peter), it’s going to have to be more of the same: Pray for the Holy Father, fast for the Holy Father, pray the Rosary for his conversion. Petition him to consecrate Russia to Our Lady of Fatima, sign open letters, beg for the Traditional Latin Mass. Join a protest, attend the Catholic Identity Conference, subscribe to The Remnant — but most of all, don’t become a sedevacantist!

But this isn’t 1987, this is 2025. The ‘same old, same old’ won’t work this time.

Image source: YouTube (screenshot)
License: fair use

Share this content now:

No Comments

Be the first to start a conversation

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.