Alexandria:
Michael Matt's livelihood is The Remnant. If he comes down hard on one side or the other, there goes readership and subscriptions and his livelihood. He has a rather large family to house and feed.
Yes, isn't this the bottom line? One hates to view it all so coldly and pragmatically. One would like to believe that there are genuine religious and spiritual motives behind Matt's behavior. But personally, I don't find a whole lot of them.
Matt & Co., (and maybe even Vennari & Co.), are forced, it seems, to make of their "traditional Catholicism" a means of keeping life and limb together. It's their only product. If only they had a broader, more diverse line of goods. But they don't. So-called "traditional Catholicism" is it. That's all they warehouse for distribution. That's what they market. So it behooves them to keep their customer base happy.
That base, they have determined, includes Fellay and the SSPX, for sure. It may also include customers from the FSSP ranks, as well, with a few Gruner-like types, with a few NO "conservatives" thrown in; also, certain members of the Fatima crowd, excluding, of course, Bp. Williamson and anything that even smacks of (gulp!) "Resistance."
I had been uneasy about the Remnant and CFN for some time. But I saw through the entire ruse the moment that Bp. Fellay was selected to celebrate Fr. Gruner's funeral Mass. That finally did it for us. (I note parenthetically how fast +Fellay got out of Dodge the minute that event was over. Did he even attend the grave side service? I don't think so.)