Pope Matthai Reese
Matthew Reese is the Pope and head of the Roman Catholic Church in A Certain Magical Index. He's an elderly man with a white beard who wears standard papal robes and carries a distinctive crosier—Christ crucified on the front, Judas hanged on the back.
Before his rise to the papacy, Reese was a devoted follower of Fiamma of the Right and considered him a close friend and mentor. That relationship would later prove significant to his decisions as Pope.
One of Reese's defining traits is his sense of isolation. Despite his position, he feels genuinely disconnected from people outside the church walls and wrestles with why that gap exists. Still, he remains bound by Catholic doctrine and institutional rules, which often pulls him toward hard-line stances.
When the magical world learns about Touma and his reality-warping abilities, Fiamma seizes the opportunity to poison Reese's ear, convincing him that Touma represents a heretical threat to global security. Reese buys the argument and issues an official declaration: Touma is a heretic and must be eliminated. The decision shows how much influence his old mentor still holds over him, and how easily institutional fear can override doubt.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
