Michael Matt, the silver-spoon heir of the Remnant Newspaper dynasty and Trad Inc. figurehead, suffered a serious bout of foot-in-the-mouth disease at the Restore Tradition Women’s Conference in Colorado, where he was a keynote speaker this past weekend. Commentator Matt Gaspers, Fr. Chad Ripperger, and Rachel Mastrogiacomo spoke at the event, among others.
In a clip taken from his speech that was widely shared and nearly universally criticized on social media Tuesday, Matt is seen telling his female audience the following: “You need to lead us back to sanity … [with] the feminine power harvested from the ultimate feminist in the history of the universe, Our Lady.”
Scores of Catholics on X immediately denounced the theologically upside down remark. “Appealing to ‘feminine power,’ & telling women they need to *lead* men ‘back to sanity?'” SSPX layman Dave Reilly asked. “This is actually INSANE.”
Many other Catholics denounced the comment as well. “I can’t believe I heard him say this!” long-time Trad Inc. critic Fred Simon remarked on X.
“Is this not an echo of Paul VI’s words below, addressed to women at the close of the Council?” asked Integrity Magazine contributor Christian Bergsma, referencing a speech where Paul claimed that men “in a moment of folly, might attempt to destroy human civilization” while “women of the entire universe, whether Christian or non-believing, you to whom life is entrusted at this grave moment in history, it is for you to save the peace of the world.”
Avoiding Babylon host Anthony Abbate went further. “This is a borderline blasphemous statement,” he said, while pushing back against Matt’s comment on his Tuesday night podcast. “He’s at a women’s conference telling women ‘you need to lead us.’ Just think about that.”
SSPX layman Cullum Smith initially gave Matt the benefit of the doubt by offering to defend him, but later deleted his comment after other users explained that Matt made his comment after speaking about the sexual revolution, the modernist revolution, and the feminist revolution of the 20th century.
“I really wanted to defend him. [I’m going to] delete this,” Smith said, adding that the July 1 SSPX consecrations “broke everything” in the Trad world.
If one wants to be generous, given Matt’s stance on feminism throughout the years, his description of Mary as the “ultimate feminist” could be downplayed as him simply trying to wow his female audience with an ill-conceived boomer hot take. At the same time, his comment that women will lead men “back to sanity” is less excusable.
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Holy Scripture clearly assigns a grave responsibility to men as the leader of the family, and for them to protect what has been entrusted to them while teaching the faith and leading the Church. St. Paul tells husbands to “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). In the same chapter, St. Paul does not tell women to lead their men “back to sanity,” but says “the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church.”
The Dispatch
Matt would have done better to call men back to Christ and to recover Christian manhood in order to become worthy husbands and fathers. He could have then appealed to his audience to use their authentic Catholic femininity to inspire and assist such a restoration in their families.
The late Bishop Richard Williamson (1940–2025) often pointed out that problems associated with feminism and liberal women stem from weak men. “Today’s men are greatly responsible for the loss of sanity between contemporary man and woman … to recover his manliness, let a man turn to God, put himself in order beneath him, and it will be that much easier for a wife to put herself in order beneath her man, and the children beneath both of them,” he said in a 2011 Eleison Comments newsletter.
Even if one excuses Matt’s comments about Mary being the “ultimate feminist,” Our Lady’s true greatness lies in her own statement that she is “the handmaid of the Lord” and in what ultimately flows from this surrender.
Furthermore, when the Holy Family finds itself amidst the insanity of Herod’s persecution, God does not tell Mary to lead Joseph and Christ to the sanity of Egypt. Instead, He tells Joseph: “Arise, and take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt” (Mt 2:13).
As of the publication of this essay, neither Gaspers nor Ripperger have weighed in on whether they agree with Matt’s remarks.
Denouncing critics of Fulton Sheen’s heterodoxy
Matt is no stranger to unprincipled flip-flopping, as demonstrated by how his initial “zip-it” policy in 2025 has evolved into full-blown criticism of Leo XIV.
Another example of his un-principled reasoning surfaced on his YouTube channel earlier this week on a podcast.
While Matt does not let a single opportunity pass to praise Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for his denouncing the Second Vatican Council, the podcast saw him letting Bishop Fulton Sheen off the hook for his modernist tendencies, attributing them to Sheen being merely “confused.”
“It got complicated after the council … Sheen didn’t know what to do,” said Matt. One minute later, he added: “I think it’s really wrong to quote something from one of these guys during the Revolution and to say, ‘Aha! Sheen was a modernist.’ I think that was wrong,” a likely swipe at Integrity’s devil’s advocate approach to Sheen’s beatification attempt.
So, according to Matt’s logic, one prelate is praiseworthy because he realized the disaster the council while another prelate should still be regarded as great even though the council turned him into a rabid modernist due to his “confusion.”
The fact that Matt’s own father, Walter Matt, and his colleague Michael Davies saw the writing on the wall even before the New Mass was introduced — according to Michael Matt himself — means that both Matt Sr. and Davies were apparently less confused than the man, Sheen, who is on his way to sainthood. Talk about a paradox.
