Roberto de Mattei

Roberto de Mattei (born 21 February 1948 in Rome, Italy) is an Italian Roman Catholic historian and author.

From February 2002 to May 2006, de Mattei held the post of Adviser for International Affairs to the Italian Government.

He has cooperated with the Pontifical Council for Historical Sciences and has been awarded from the Holy See the Order of Knighthood of St. Gregory the Great, as acknowledgement to this service to the Church.

Between 2003 and 2011 de Mattei was the vice-president of the National Research Council of Italy.

In that role, he has been highly criticized for his scientific ideas, in particular for having organized and funded a meeting supporting antievolutionism.

This fact led part of the Italian scientific community to a request for his resignation.

Among other academic positions, de Mattei was Professor of Modern History at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Cassino and is currently Professor of Modern History and History of Christianity and Coordinator of the Degree Course in Historical Sciences at the new European University in Rome, which was founded in 2004 under the sponsorship of the Legionaries of Christ.

Among de Mattei's most recent publications is a history of Vatican Council II (Il Concilio Vaticano II. Una storia mai scritta, Lindau, Turin 2010) wherein, without touching onto the theological debate on the hermeneutics of the council, he suggests an historical view on the event which is antithetical to that proposed by the School of Bologna.

Reviewers have noted the book's "archival discoveries from the ultra-traditionalist Lefebvrians" and its new information concerning the role of the traditionalist Coetus Internationalis Patrum at the council.

As the book's historical content raises questions about the nature of the intents of Second Vatican Council's main theologians and Popes, Mattei's book ended up drawing out heated criticism by both Catholic conservatives and progressives.

Fr. Jared Wicks, S.J. and Massimo Faggioli, both progressives linked to Jesuit institutions, described it as "critically flawed" for its purported "denigration" of the council's presiding Popes, and of the Council members who followed their reform agenda, as following a "conspiracy-driven Lefebvrian interpretation" and "essentially useless" for developing an understanding of Vatican II.

However, Mattei's book draws heavily on primary sources that witnessed in first person both the council and the historical development of the schools of the Nouvelle théologie, such as Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen, S.V.D.'s book The Rhine Flows into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II.

Mattei's book has been translated into English as The Second Vatican Council – An Unwritten Story with Michael M. Miller as editor.

The controversy upsurged again after some statements by de Mattei, such as that the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan was a divine punishment.

Furthermore, he claimed the "contagion of homosexuality" had been responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire.

In February 2014, Mattei's monthly radio program, Radici Cristiane (Christian Roots), was cancelled by the director of Radio Maria because of Mattei's increasingly "critical position regarding the Pontificate of Pope Francis".

In fact, Professor de Mattei was one of the first critics of Pope Francis to whom he dedicated the 11 February 2014 article "Motus in fine velocior" in Corrispondenza Romana.

His studies mainly concern European history between the 16th and 20th centuries, with a focus on the history of religious and political ideas.

As traditionalist Catholic, he is known for his anti-evolutionist positions, also publicised in institutional circles, for his critique of relativism and the lines of thought established in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council.

De Mattei was formerly a student and assistant to the philosopher of politics Augusto Del Noce and to the historian Armando Saitta at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the Sapienza University of Rome

De Mattei has extensively studied European history of the 16th and 20th centuries, with particular focus on the history of religious and political ideas.

He describes himself as "above all … a disciple of Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira".

Among the various initiatives of criticism is also the Correctio Filialis De Haeresibus Propagatis, a 25-page letter written on 16 July 2017 and signed by 40 Catholic priests and lay scholars, sent to Pope Francis on 11 August 2017.

In it, it states that the pope, through his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia and through other words, acts and omissions related to it, has endorsed 7 heretical positions, concerning marriage, moral life and the reception of the sacraments, and has caused the spread of these heretical views in the Catholic Church.

De Mattei has been described by progressive theologian Massimo Faggioli as "a renowned apologist for ultra-traditional Catholicism".

De Mattei is a member of the Board of Directors of the "Italian Historical Institute for the Modern and Contemporary Age", the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family, and of the "Italian Geographic Society".

He is President of the Lepanto Foundation (Rome – Washington) and he is editor-in-chief of the monthly review "Radici Cristiane", the quarterly historical review "Nova Historica", and the weekly "Corrispondenza Romana".

With the Lepanto Foundation, Professor de Mattei organised events called Acies Ordinata: the first in Rome on 19 February and 28 September 2019, the last in Munich on 18 January 2020.

Various personalities from the traditional Catholic world of various nationalities have joined them.

These were public demonstrations lasting one hour, where participants arranged in an orderly manner prayed the Rosary in silence, concluding with the singing of the Creed.

These demonstrations took place on the eve of important ecclesiastical events: the summit of the presidents of the bishops' conferences (21 February 2019), the special synod of bishops for Amazonia (6 October 2019), synodal path of the German bishops (30 January 2020).

At the last event, among others, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Michael Matt, editor of the American newspaper Remnant (USA); Alexander Tschugguel, the young Austrian known for having thrown the Pachamama into the Tiber; John-Henry Westen – editor of the international blog LifeSiteNews; John Smeaton – president of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Children (UK); Baroness Hedwig von Beverfoelde, German pro-life leader; German writer Gabriele Kuby, Count Peter zu Stolberg; Prof. Thomas Stark; Dr Thomas Ward, president of the British Catholic Doctors.

On the occasion of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, de Mattei put forward the hypothesis of a SARS-CoV-2 escape from the Wuhan Laboratory.

This hypothesis has been published in a book entitled Le misteriose origini del Coronavirus (The mysterious origins of Coronavirus) published in 2021 with Edizioni Fiducia.

However, he distinguished himself from the openly anti-vax positions of a certain area of the traditional Catholic world by publishing a book on the moral permissibility of vaccines, thus adhering to the official position of the Catholic Church in favour of anti-COVID-19 vaccination expressed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 21 December 2020.

When the Russian-Ukrainian conflict began on 24 February 2022, Professor de Mattei took a stance opposing the pro-Russian narrative, distancing himself from other traditionalist Catholics who sided with Vladimir Putin, including Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

De Mattei's perspective on the conflict is not limited to geopolitical aspects, but he rather believes that the key of interpretation for such dramatic events is the message of Fatima, as he recently stated.

In this regard, Professor de Mattei considered valid the Consecration, made by Pope Francis on 25 March 2022, of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary according to the dictates of Our Lady in the 1917 apparitions in Fatima.