Then there are the almost weekly whoppers in the Pope’s off-the-cuff sermons—far too many even to summarize here. For example, :
What they [the sedevacantists] have failed to understand is that the judgment of heresy is not left to individual Catholics in the pew, but to the Church, which is why John of St. Thomas said: “be he [the Pope] ever so manifestly heretical according to private judgment, he remains as far as we are concerned a member of the Church and consequently its head. Judgment is required by the Church. It is only then that he ceases to be Pope as far as we are concerned.”
Finally, I note that Keating—the classic Man Without an Argument—even descends to denigrating the memory of the Editor’s father while pitting the late father against his son:
Most of the columns by “Megaera Erinyes” have a similar tone and similar premises, and they are mirrored by other articles in “The Remnant,” which has become so off-the-wall that its founder, the late Walter Matt, likely would have disowned what it has become. (He published some nonsense but nothing as mean-spirited and obtuse as what “Megaera Erinyes” writes.) [emphasis mine]
Putting aside Keating’s usual reliance on lazy characterizations instead of substantiated claims (“a similar tone,” “similar premises,” “mirrored by other articles,” “off-the-wall”), consider just how despicable this tactic is. Keating specializes in low blows, but here he outdoes himself: insulting Michael Matt’s father as a publisher of nonsense only to declare that Michael’s work is so much worse that even his nonsense-publishing father would disown it. Keating makes a shyster lawyer look like a paragon of noble discourse. I knew Walter Matt well enough to know that were he here today to speak in his son’s defense he would say that he is proud of what Michael is doing to carry on the Matt family’s 150-year-long Catholic journalistic tradition: telling the truth without reserve, while endeavoring to provide thoughtful and provocative commentary meant for people who know how to reason and understand the use of literary devices. Apologize, Karl, or forfeit whatever is left of your credibility as a Catholic writer.
Having, as usual, failed sustain his petty complaint against the traditionalist position in general and The Remnant in particular, Keating huffs that Megaera’s article is “mean-spirited and obtuse.” Neither adjective applies to the article in question, which is clearly the work of a very gifted writer as anyone who practices the craft of writing can see. But both adjectives apply in spades to Keating’s neurotic nitpicking of The Remnant while the Church faces a new stage in the post-conciliar crisis exemplified by the just-concluded Synod of Francis. As Cardinal Burke has so courageously stated: “the very fact that these matters were being discussed and questioned by the presidents of the conferences of bishops, by the heads of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia, and by other special appointees of the Holy Father to the synod caused a tremendous confusion and could even induce the faithful into error with regard to the teaching about marriage and other teachings.”
It is high time for Keating to join serious Catholic commentators around the world in focusing on something a bit more pressing than who said what in The Remnant: the increasingly troubling words and deeds of the Pope who engineered a totally unnecessary and very nearly disastrous Synod. Meanwhile, give The Remnant a break, will you, Karl? Find something else with which to distract yourself. Sharpen some pencils. Straighten out your desk. Or perhaps you could engage in the activity you like to tell your readers about: take a hike.