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The Remnant:
Our Position and Purpose

(You can read a word or two about our columnists by clicking here: The Remnant Columnists)

The Remnant's position is a simple one, as it strives essentially to adhere to Catholic teaching in every aspect of its journalism. There has been great upheaval and revolution within the Catholic Church over the past five decades -- not unlike the one encountered in the fourth century by St. Athanasius, called the Arian Heresy -- and Catholics are called to oppose that which in any way contradicts the infallible teachings and immutable traditions of the Catholic Church.

The Mass

Never before in the history of the Church has there been a Mass that featured women in the sanctuary, laymen giving out Holy Communion, Communion being given out in the hand, altar girls, polka music, clowns, kissing and hugging, priests facing the people, etc. Today all of these things have developed, despite the fact that the Second Vatican Council never called for such irreverent changes in the Mass. These changes in the Mass are completely wrong and have led to widespread loss of Faith among Catholics. Through the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, Catholics have promised to reject and oppose such abusive and diabolical attacks against Christ's Church. The Remnant, then, sees itself as one of the many voices who are crying out against abusive liturgical and doctrinal aberrations such as Clown Masses, women priests, Communion in the hand, erroneous Theology, abusive and sacrilegious liturgical innovations, the abandonment of prayer, the denial of sin and hell, the rise of phony ecumenism (which states that there is little or no difference between Catholicism and Protestantism, or between Catholicism and Mohammedanism or any other monotheistic religion, and that all religions are good), the annulment abuse, the abuse of NFP, etc. etc.

The Crisis

The Remnant has been fighting against this revolution in the Church for nearly thirty-five years, just as it has been fighting against the errors that affect and infect our modern state-- Socialism, Communism, the Welfare State, the abortion epidemic, euthanasia, sex education, etc., etc. Many of the abuses in the Catholic liturgy and in Catholic teaching have been sanctioned by priests and bishops, and because of this fact, most Catholics have been afraid to object to the near-constant attacks against traditional Catholicism which they see and hear at their local parishes. And, although in normal times laymen should not object to what priests and bishops may be teaching, these are not normal times. Oftentimes, it is Modernist priests and bishops who are the problem and who are pushing totally radical and novel doctrinal and liturgical ideas, and even though Catholics must respect their office, Catholics still are called upon to oppose anyone --even bishops and priests--who support Modernist thinking or radical new liturgical innovations which go contrary to the traditional teachings of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Within the Church, however, there are those who take this traditional Catholic counterrevolution too far--declaring that, since Vatican II helped to bring on all of this chaos and denial of Faith, then the popes who called the Council must not be legitimate popes. Many Catholics, who feel this way, believe that there is no legitimate pope presently in Rome, and that Pope John Paul is an impostor. The Remnant has decried this erroneous conclusion, insisting that the Church’s legitimate (though progressivist) pope is most certainly Pope John Paul II.

Loyal Opposition

Catholics cannot leave the Church, nor are they free to lambaste and deny the Pope at will for things like his "Altar Girl Permission" or the "Assisi Ecumenical Affair" or the convening of the Second Vatican Council. Catholic lay people must guard against this attitude, which is commonly referred to as "sede vacantism." Nevertheless, Catholics must wake up to the fact that the Church is in a state of unprecedented revolution and turmoil at present, and that, since the Council, she has undergone a near total spiritual breakdown. The Remnant's purpose, then, is to fight that which is novel and which goes against the traditional Catholic liturgies and infallible teachings of the past. The Remnant is not interested in starting it own Church or in crowning its own "traditional" pope. The Remnant fights the revolutionaries in the Church from within the Church. It is opposed to Modernism, Papolatry (the worship of the Pope), phony ecumenism and anything else which compromises the traditional Catholic Faith-- but it labors for a restoration of the old Faith, and not for the foundation of a new "traditional" church. Its fight encompasses scholarly opposition against such varied errors as Communion in the hand, married priests, women priests, the Renew Movement, phony ecumenism, the Protestantization of the Roman Liturgy, Liberation Theology, the Medjugorje "Industry," the cover-up of the Third Secret of Fatima, the re-writing of Catholic history, and the ongoing Modernist-inspired changes to the traditional Mass and Sacraments of the Church-- to name only a few. The Remnant is part of the "Loyal Opposition"-- it defends Pope John Paul as the legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and it also defends his strong stand on moral issues in the face of the Modern world. At the same time, The Remnant has publicly disagreed with Pope John Paul over his positions on such questions as ecumenism, granting the "altar girls" permission, consorting with the United Nations, and his unqualified and complete support of the Second Vatican Council and all of its unfortunate results. The Remnant, quite simply, lives and breathes to defend the traditional Catholic Church. It supports no new theology, it gives no succor to the new ecumenism, and it will defend Catholic traditions for as long as God sees fit to allow it to keep going to press every two weeks.

An Independent Voice

It is also important to note that The Remnant is not an "Indult Catholic" journal, nor is it a "Society of St. Pius X Catholic" journal (although its editors have great respect and admiration for the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre), nor is it a "Fraternity of St. Peter Catholic" journal. The Remnant is Roman Catholic and that is all. And it will (please God) defend the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church for however long its doors remain open. So to put it in a nutshell, The Remnant's position is simply Catholic, and its purpose is simply to defend the traditions of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. As a lay-run apostolate, the editors of The Remnant recognize that it is only a very small and limited instrument against the forces of Modernism which presently have the Bride of Christ by the throat. But it is a small effort that, in its small way, continues to at least try to do something to oppose the prevailing madness within the Church and within the world today. The Restoration of the Catholic Church will come from the top down, and not form the bottom up. And so it is that lay efforts like The Remnant carry on, always looking to Rome for the real Restoration to finally begin. Until that happens though, laymen must do all in their power to keep their own Faith and to do what ever they can to help others to do the same in this spiritual Dark Age called the Twenty-first Century. Rather than merely cursing that Darkness, however, The Remnant has attempted to keep the candle of the Catholic Faith lit, and to survive this nightmare until the light of the new dawn of the Restoration of the Catholic Church can be seen on the horizon. May God help us all to keep the Faith until that blessed day finally dawns!

The Remnant Columnists

Over the years, The Remnant has been blessed with the able journalistic contributions of such notables as Fr. Vincent Miceli (RIP), Hamish Fraser (RIP), Malachi Martin (RIP), Dr. William Marra (RIP), Dr. John Rao, Gary Potter, Edwin Faust, Michael Davies (RIP), Solange Hertz, Walter L. Matt (RIP), Theresa Ickinger, Fr. Charles Fiore (RIP), Fr. Lawrence Brey, Fr. Eugene Dougherty, Fr. Fred Nelson (RIP), John Mulloy and many other dedicated Catholic journalists and writers. Here we highlight some of our best-known contributors.

Michael Davies (RIP)
Mr. Davies began to write for The Remnant in 1972, and continued to do so until his death in October of 2004. The Remnant introduced American Catholics to this prolific and gifted Catholic writer. In addition to his regular Remnant column, Mr. Davies wrote dozens of books and thousands of articles on the liturgical question and the Church in history. His able journalism led most to regard him as the foremost liturgical lay expert in the English-speaking world of his day. Mr. Davies was also the president of the International Una Voce Federation. Mr. Davies will be sorely missed. May he rest in peace.

Solange Hertz
Mrs. Hertz has been with The Remnant for more than ten years. Already an established writer for many major Catholic periodicals before the Council, she refused to adapt her beliefs to the liturgical revolution and to the Spirit of Vatican II, and so became a "traditional Catholic" writer. She is the author of many books and countless articles on the New Age, the New World Order, Modern "un-Godly" Science, Satanism, Judaism, Freemasonry, and the like. Mrs. Hertz is a regular contributor to The Remnant and her articles can be found abroad in Apropos, Christian Order and Action Familiale et Scholaire. She is universally regarded as one of traditional Catholicism's foremost contemporary writers. Mrs. Hertz currently resides in Virginia.

Walter L. Matt (RIP)
The son of German immigrants, Walter Matt came from a long line of Catholic lay journalists. His grandfather launched the German-language Wanderer, and his father, Joseph Matt, K.S.G., founded the English-language Wanderer -- the oldest Catholic weekly newspaper in the United States today. Mr. Matt was an editor of The Wanderer for some thirty years before he founded The Remnant, of which he was the editor/publisher for some twenty-five more years. Over his long, fifty-some years in the Catholic press apostolate, he wrote countless studies on countless different topics, concerning both the Catholic Church and the secular State. He was a veteran of World War II and was still active in the fight to restore the traditions of the Catholic Church until his death in 2002 at 87 years of age. Mr. Matt is generally regarded as one of the founders of the traditional Catholic Movement in the United States.

Michael J. Matt
Michael Matt has been an editor of The Remnant since 1990. Since 1994, he has been the newspaper's editor. A graduate of Christendom College, Michael Matt has written hundreds of articles on the state of the Church, as well as on the anti-Christian political trends in the world -- for The Remnant and other Catholic publications. He is the author of Christian Fables, Legends of Christmas and Gods of Wasteland (Fifty Years of Rock ‘n’ Roll), the co-author of We Resist You to the Face, and regularly delivers addresses and conferences to traditional Catholic groups in and around the United States and Canada. Mr. Matt has proven himself an outspoken opponent of a variety of anti-Catholic movements including the culturally subversive forces behind the rock 'n' roll industry, the liturgical revolutionaries, Freemasonry, phony ecumenism, etc. Together with his beloved wife, Carol Lynn and their four children, Mr. Matt currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Remnant is currently supported by the able journalism of regular columnists Dr. Thomas Droleskey, PH.D, Christopher Ferrara Esq., Dr. John Rao, Ph.D., Dr. Thomas Woods, Ph.D, Michael Chapman, Mark Alessio, Robert Sungenis, Pauline Zingleman and dozens of other Catholic writers.

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