Al Matt, Longtime Editor And Publisher Of The Wanderer, Dies

By PEGGY MOEN

Born on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1931, Alphonse Joseph Matt Jr., The Wanderer’s longtime editor and publisher and father of the current publisher, died on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2019. He was 88 and had been suffering from age-related illnesses for a number of years. He was born and died in St. Paul, Minn., where he lived all his life.

After more than a decade in the business world, including eight years as a process engineer with 3M, Al Matt joined The Wanderer in 1965 as a business manager and editorial assistant. Eight years later, he became editor-publisher of The Wanderer following the sudden death of his father, Alphonse Matt Sr., who had been editor-publisher.

With that, Al continued a family line of Wanderer editors: Hugo Klapproth, a German Lutheran who converted to Catholicism, became the editor in 1878, 11 years after the paper’s founding. Klapproth’s son-in-law, Joseph Matt, took over in 1897. Joseph’s son, Walter, assumed the editorship in 1964, two years before Joseph’s death.

But Walter Matt resigned in 1967 to found The Remnant. Walter left The Wanderer over a dispute about the meaning of Vatican II. He saw it not so much as a reform and a renewal of the Church but as a revolution that threatened to undermine the Church herself. His brother, Alphonse J. Matt Sr., took over the reins at The Wanderer and reminded its readers that the real intent of the council was a renewed evangelization of the world for Christ and a personal renewal of every individual Catholic. Alphonse Sr. then took over as executive editor of The Wanderer, serving until his death in 1973 and his son’s assumption of the office.

             Al Matt thus came into the business in the midst of the postconciliar changes and upheavals.

The revision of the rite of the Sacrifice of the Mass ordered by Pope Paul VI after Vatican II created serious divisions among Catholics, and while The Wanderer expressed serious reservations about the extent and character of the reforms, the editors insisted upon the right of Pope Paul VI to effect such changes.

In more recent years, The Wanderer has been a leader in promoting the reforms of Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio allowing for wider use of the Traditional liturgy. The newspaper has also highlighted the Pope’s 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, providing personal ordinariates to enable Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church, and his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate, which explains how charity in truth is at the heart of the Church’s social teaching.

Under Matt’s leadership, The Wanderer continually and forcefully defended Catholic teaching and discipline on marriage and the sanctity of life against the onslaught of critics, whether within or outside the Church. Throughout the pontificates of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, The Wanderer espoused those Popes’ magnificent teachings on these vital issues.

Al Matt was a great admirer of both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. On the day John Paul was elected Pope, October 16, 1978, Al was gathered around the radio with three Wanderer employees, listening to the announcement of the election of a new Pope. When the name “Karol Wojtyla” was announced, all four at The Wanderer were at first confused and didn’t recognize the name.

Then, Al slapped his knee and said, “Wojtyla! A good guy!”

Al was still active at The Wanderer at the time of the election of Pope Francis in 2013, and he remained so for a couple of years into Francis’ pontificate. Initially optimistic about Francis as Pope, over time Al grew more concerned about the lack of clarity coming from the Chair of Peter, and also dissatisfied with many of Francis’ appointments and other moves.

His concern is reflected in The Wanderer’s editorial stance down to this day.

Alphonse J. Matt Jr. attended Nativity Catholic School from kindergarten through eighth grade. He also attended St. Thomas Military Academy, St. Thomas College (now the University of St. Thomas), and the University of Minnesota. He served in the U.S. Naval Air Reserve from 1951-1955. He was a member of St. Agnes Parish in St. Paul for many years.

Alphonse Matt Jr. and his wife, Constance Angell, were married in 1953 and have six children and 20 grandchildren.

With his father and several associates, Matt was a founding member and director of Catholics United for the Faith, begun in 1968 to mobilize the Catholic laity against the assaults on the faith by dissident and rebellious Catholics following the issuance of Humanae Vitae.

He served on the board of The Wanderer Forum Foundation in a number of capacities.

In the early 1970s, Matt was a member of the first pastoral council established in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

As a member of the Catholic “loyal opposition,” Alphonse Matt Jr. served as a delegate to numerous national Catholic conventions organized by the modernist element within the Church, often with the complicity of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (later the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops). Among the meetings were the ill-fated Consultation on a National Pastoral Council and the infamous Call to Action meeting of 1976.

He covered a number of synods in Rome for The Wanderer, including the 1974 synod on “Evangelization in the Modern World.” In an editorial in the November 7, 1974 Wanderer entitled “The Pope to the Rescue,” Matt reported that at that synod, “numerous bishops asserted the need for the Church to adapt itself to changing times.” Paul VI, however, insisted: “We could not allow false directions to be followed.” Matt concluded: “It is well to recall frequently during these confused times that the voice of the Holy Father is the one, sure voice that can be heeded with confidence.”

In 1988, he stuck to that same principle in refusing to follow Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in his split with the Catholic Church. The Wanderer didn’t back Lefebvre, who had incurred automatic excommunication under John Paul II for consecrating four bishops for his Society of St. Pius X. Hundreds of readers subsequently canceled their subscriptions.

Matt also covered the 1987 Synod on the Laity for The Wanderer, reporting at its end that “the campaign to feminize the Catholic Church in the United States received little support at the recently concluded Synod on the Laity despite the best efforts of the delegation of bishops from the United States” (issue of November 19, 1987).

Promoting orthodox catechesis and Catholic education was another theme of Al Matt’s Wanderer. The paper excoriated the old Dutch Catechism and its imitators and heralded the restoration catechisms, from Jesuit Fr. John A. Hardon’s Catholic Catechism to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Along with eulogizing the late Popes, Al also saluted other Church leaders upon their passing, including Msgr. Richard J. Schuler of St. Agnes Parish in St. Paul and pro-life leader Fr. Paul Marx, OSB. And he wrote obituaries for some noteworthy laymen, including Eugene Reber, a longtime Wanderer employee who died in 1993, and Thomas F. Roeser, a prominent Catholic layman and Wanderer columnist who died in 2011.

In 2008, the Society of Catholic Social Scientists bestowed its Blessed Frederic Ozanam Award for Catholic Social Action on Alphonse Matt.

At the beginning of Al Matt’s tenure as editor, The Wanderer occupied a rather lonely spot in its advocacy and defense of the Catholic Church and the papacy. Over time, that field expanded to include dozens of soundly Catholic newspapers, magazines, newsletters, websites, and television channels and radio stations. Al expressed his appreciation for the company.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Alphonse Sr. and Loretta, his brother John, who also worked at The Wanderer, and his son-in-law Dave Ternes.

Al’s funeral will be held at St. Agnes Church in St. Paul.

Visitation at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, December 16, with the funeral Mass following at 10:30 a.m.

May this servant of God rest in peace.

Is Africa Being Colonized Again?

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

In Target Africa (Ignatius Press), Obianuju Ekeocha vividly describes the twenty-first century’s version of ideological colonialism. These new, rabid colonialists never give up, and last month some ten thousand of them gathered in Nairobi, Kenya. The stated occasion was the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo in 1994. The real reason was their fear that their crusade to wipe out the next generation of Africans was losing steam. And they were mad, very mad.
The 1994 conference, held under the auspices of the United Nations, featured pro-abortion forces (including the Clinton administration) arrayed against a coalition of pro-life Third World countries. A delegation representing the Holy See came on strong in favor of life and family, inspired by the vigorous support of Pope St. John Paul II. As a result, the pro-abortion goals of the conference were thwarted twenty-five years ago.
Well, this time around, the organizers stacked the deck. Spearheaded by the notorious United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), organizers sent invitations under the radar, their “statement” was written before the meeting even began, and the program’s goals were stark and soulless. Foremost among them: “universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.”
The Nairobi meeting was held not under the auspices of the United Nations, but of a rump assemblage described by LifeSiteNews as “a few pro-abortion UN member states — notably Canada, Iceland, Finland, Ireland, Australia, and Italy — and corporations that included Bayer, the Ford Foundation, Plan International, General Electric, and Women Deliver.” Participants were virtually all rabid advocates not only of abortion, but of the subjection of families and children to the control of a secular, all-powerful state, preferably run by the internationalists at the United Nations.
Organizers kept key details of the meeting private in order to prevent an instant replay of 1994, when the real ICPD concluded that countries should “take appropriate steps to help women avoid abortion, which in no case should be promoted as a method of family planning.” Shorn of its faux “official” disguise, November’s ICPD+25 meeting constituted a pep rally for population planners attempting to hijack the authority of the “ICPD” label in order to pervert it. … Continue Reading

The Church Is Holy

By JOE SIXPACK

Last week, we began looking at the four marks of the Church; that is, that she is one. Today we’ll continue with the second mark, which says that the Church is holy. Before we do, however, we need to define the origin of the Church a little more deeply.
Have you ever wondered why the Catholic Church refers to herself as the Mystical Body of Christ? It comes from Sacred Scripture. St. Paul refers to the Church as the Body of Christ repeatedly (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12), but in order to understand why he does so, as well as its significance, we need to focus on Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:1-6).
St. Paul, who prior to his conversion was called Saul, was a Pharisee and persecutor of Christians. At the time of his conversion, Saul was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians when Jesus appeared to him in His glorified state.
“Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting’” (Acts 9:3-5).
This encounter with Jesus apparently formed St. Paul’s theology on the Church. Paul saw the Church was a divine institution, with Jesus as its head and us as its members. Indeed, Paul saw that Jesus Christ and His Church are one and the same. Notice that Jesus didn’t ask, “Why do you persecute my followers?” or “Why do you persecute my Church?” He asked, “Why do you persecute me?”
Jesus had ascended into Heaven a long time before St. Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, so Paul couldn’t have been persecuting Jesus. The persecution was of His followers. But that isn’t what Jesus says. Christ’s words are clearly indicative that to persecute His followers is to persecute Him. This is why St. Paul taught that we’re members of the Body of Christ — the Church — and He is its head. Paul understood that Jesus and His Church are one. … Continue Reading

Blame The Amish… New Attack On Parental Rights In Education

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD

We know and have long encountered efforts by the Secular Left to erode parental rights over their children’s education. We see that played out nearly everywhere today, from the promulgation of rules for “open” shower facilities, to the recognition of deviant behavior as legitimate lifestyles, to the Marxist indoctrination of students, to claims that America’s white male racist history is oppressive to all others.
The progressives have made major inroads into the control of the nation’s educational apparatus. What has limited their further success has been the resistance of concerned parents who have raised the stakes by confronting the left at local town meetings, legislative assemblies, and in the courts. With the help of the numerous nonprofit law centers such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Thomas More Society, and the Pacific Justice Institute — just to name a few — parents have been able to put a stop or at least slow down further infringement on their parental rights.
Of course the left, much like the mythical Hydra, has many heads from which it can continue its attack, as it has done to home-schooling and parochial learning centers, all with the aim of limiting parental involvement through the adoption of standards and curricula that suit their purposes.
Most recently, some states and local school boards have forced their gender self-identification theories into the curriculum for students as early as second grade; some even to kindergarten. In other districts Planned Parenthood has been allowed to “teach” classes in human biology and reproduction.
But courts, unfortunately for the left, sometimes get in the way by upholding the rights of parents to have some input into the system. Some provide parents with advance notification of certain topics with the opt-out right to remove their children from certain class presentations. Others have put a halt to some of the more extreme educational theories of the left, thus turning at least partial control back to parents.
Letting parents have any say over their children’s education is, of course, anathema to the left. Thus they have now gone to war with the leading case standing for religious-parental rights in education: Wisconsin v. Yoder. … Continue Reading

A Thought For Advent . . . Christmas Is Revolutionary

By DONALD DeMARCO

When people refuse to acknowledge bad things that come into their lives, we call it denial. By that we imply that the bad things are indeed real but it is the deniers who are being unrealistic. On the other hand, when people are confronted with exceedingly good things — things that are “too good to be true,” so to speak — they often find a way to reduce them to something trivial. The cynic, in this case, might call such people realistic while he dismisses the exceedingly good things that occur as unrealistic. So often, in the face of either great hardship or great good, people are less than realistic.
The greatest good that was ever brought to mankind in our star-crossed planet was the arrival of Christ, Prince of Peace, Savior, and Redeemer. And while, as G.K. Chesterton notes, “The Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep,” Christmas has always had its cynics, beginning with Herod, who fail to see its fundamental and salutary purpose.
The eminently quotable Chesterton offers us an amusing and enlightening example: “If a man called Christmas Day a mere hypocritical excuse for drunkenness and gluttony, that would be false, but it would have a fact hidden in it somewhere. But when Bernard Shaw says that Christmas Day is only a conspiracy kept up by poulterers and wine merchants from strictly business motives, then he says something which is not so much false as startling and arrestingly foolish. He might as well say that the two sexes were invented by jewelers who wanted to sell wedding rings.”
Modern marriage is not the invention of photographers. Televised football is not the brainchild of the beer industry. Christmas is not sustained because it rings the cash registers of department stores.
When we put first things first, we begin to see Christmas in its purity, an event that has a divine origin, and we see that it is the best thing that was ever brought into our world. Therefore, we should respond to its tidings of exceedingly good news with exceedingly great joy. We may be critical of those who profit monetarily from Christmas without being critical of Christmas itself. The cynic does not always know when to stop. … Continue Reading

Is Africa Being Colonized Again?

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

In Target Africa (Ignatius Press), Obianuju Ekeocha vividly describes the twenty-first century’s version of ideological colonialism. These new, rabid colonialists never give up, and last month some ten thousand of them gathered in Nairobi, Kenya. The stated occasion was the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo in 1994. The real reason was their fear that their crusade to wipe out the next generation of Africans was losing steam. And they were mad, very mad.
The 1994 conference, held under the auspices of the United Nations, featured pro-abortion forces (including the Clinton administration) arrayed against a coalition of pro-life Third World countries. A delegation representing the Holy See came on strong in favor of life and family, inspired by the vigorous support of Pope St. John Paul II. As a result, the pro-abortion goals of the conference were thwarted twenty-five years ago.
Well, this time around, the organizers stacked the deck. Spearheaded by the notorious United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), organizers sent invitations under the radar, their “statement” was written before the meeting even began, and the program’s goals were stark and soulless. Foremost among them: “universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.” … Continue Reading

Maryland Counseling Ban Appealed

GREENBELT, Md. — Liberty Counsel has filed the opening brief asking the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the district judge’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction against Maryland’s harmful counseling ban.
The court issued an opinion dismissing Liberty Counsel’s lawsuit against Maryland’s law prohibiting minors from receiving voluntary counseling from licensed professionals to reduce or eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions or gender confusion.
However, U.S. District Judge Deborah Chasanow acknowledged the Supreme Court overturned both original cases that upheld similar counseling bans, but then refused to apply the precedent.
In Doyle v. Hogan, Liberty Counsel represents Christopher Doyle, a licensed professional counselor in Virginia and Maryland. Doyle is challenging Maryland’s SB 1028, which was signed into law by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and went into effect on October 1, 2018.
Doyle counsels minors who voluntarily seek his help and are struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, and identity. Doyle’s counseling is provided solely through speech, but it is prohibited by Maryland’s counseling ban because the state disapproves Doyle’s viewpoint. … Continue Reading

Let’s Not Forget… The Beauty And Virtue Of Advent Before Christmas

By REY FLORES

Once upon a time, there were many sad little pine trees, cut down from their roots before their time. Christmas was coming, so people demanded and wanted their Christmas trees. Thanksgiving Day dinner had not even been served, but Christmas was coming, and we must have our Christmas trees.
It used to be that the Friday after Thanksgiving Day was the first day to start doing your Christmas shopping, but now whenever the retailers can get away with it, they’ll start their Christmas promotions right after Halloween.
Black Friday they call it, because it’s the most profitable day of the year for retailers. In business terms, being “in the black” is much better than the negative profits which then put one’s business “in the red.”
Houses are already lit-up, decorated with lights, garish decorations of snowmen and reindeers, but hardly a sign of the Nativity. Santa Claus reigns in the premature secular Xmas holiday, despite the true meaning of this annual celebration.
Advent? What’s that?
By December 26, streets across the nation are strewn with discarded Christmas trees, trash cans overflowing with colorful gift wrap, bows and ribbons, with huge cardboard boxes which once held a brand-new flat screen TV or some other overpriced household gadget or another.
As the world is awash with advertisements about how important it is for us to spend money we don’t even have on gifts, just to prove how much we love one another, our church pews remain empty, for the most part.
Instead of joining the mob of mindless zombies crashing through the doors of Walmart’s and other retailers across our land, we should be on our knees thanking God not for what we want, but for what He has already blessed us with.
Rather than wasting our time watching mindless college football games, families should instead be throwing a football around their front or back yards, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, all spending the short, precious time we have on this Earth. … Continue Reading

Hemlock Or Kool-Aid… The Advent Of Christ The King

By JACK KENNY

“Where is he that is born King of the Jews?”
In the Church calendar, the days of holy feasts and solemnities go by with dizzying speed. And sometimes the chronology seems disordered. We might wonder, for example, why the Slaughter of the Innocents on December 28 comes before the Epiphany on January 6. And the short span of time from the end of the Christmas season to the beginning of Lent is, again, dizzying. And we are hardly absorbing the meaning of Good Friday before late afternoon on Saturday brings us to the Vigil Mass for Easter Sunday.
But the arrangement of the Church calendar to end one liturgical year with the Feast of Christ the King and to begin the new year one week later with the First Sunday of Advent is highly instructive.
For one thing, the first couple of Sundays of Advent are focused not on the birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago, but on His coming again as King of Heaven and Earth.
And even as the babe in the manger, He was, as the question of the Wise Men indicates, “born King of the Jews.”
The secular world begins its carol crooning and “holiday” parties before Thanksgiving and no later than Pearl Harbor Day on December 7. And even those events that still invoke the title “Christmas” make no reference to the One born that day or anything else pertaining to that holy time and place. Anyone ever heard mention of Christ at the office “Christmas” party?
And what do we learn from the Feast of Christ the King? That Christ, with no regal appearance, claimed the Kingship that is “not of this world.” But it includes this world, however much the worldly deny it and refuse it recognition. Pilate scoffs, “What is truth?” and soon enough we will again hear on Good Friday the words of the ungodly chief priests: “We have no king but Caesar.” If there are more frightening words in all of Scripture, I have not yet found them.
The implications are dreadful for the political and social orders. It is to proclaim that there is nothing in Heaven or on Earth to restrain the power of the state. Caesar controls all. None may resist his omnipotent will. Because Caesar and his legions are long gone, the modern world fails to recognize the threat that “no king but Caesar” poses. But we must remember that the feast we celebrated this Sunday past was not the Feast of Christ the Democrat,” but the “Feast of Christ the King.” Tyrants are often ushered in by democracies. “Power to the People,” when not threatening, has a hollow sound. … Continue Reading

The Queen And The Farmer

By JOE SIXPACK

Queen Elizabeth of England, whom the British called Good Queen Bess because she regularly oppressed Catholics, was out in the English countryside with her hunting party when she came upon a venerable old farmer working his field. She soon discovered that the old man was a fervent Catholic, faithful to the old religion. The Queen tactfully tried to win the old man over to the religion of her father, King Henry VIII.
The old farmer listened attentively and respectfully as she spoke, even nodding his head and smiling occasionally. And as she continued to speak he thoughtfully stroked his rather full and impressive beard. The Queen concluded by asking him, “Well, will you convert and join us?”
The old man slowly shook his head from side to side, grasped his beard firmly in his right hand, and asked, “How can I join a religion that is younger than my own gray beard?”
The old farmer’s answer to the Queen was very wise. The question of the age of non-Catholic Christian religions is a good point, but our separated brethren never seem to grasp that. King Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church in 1534, when he declared himself head of the Church in England, but it was Martin Luther who started it all with his break from the Church in 1517. The Catholic Church is the only Christian religion that goes back to the origins of Christianity.
If I were a Protestant (and I was), I would have to reasonably ask myself (and I did), “Are we to believe that we had to wait fifteen hundred years after Christ ascended into Heaven to get the fullness of divine Revelation?” That seems to be what Protestants truly do believe, yet that makes no sense at all. … Continue Reading