Roberto de Mattei

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