contra-cekadam

THE ERROR OF SEDEVACANTISM BLOWN OUT OF THE WATER BY THE TORPEDO OF CATHOLIC TRUTH!

(Photo) Fr Cekada vs Fr Chazal debating the sedevacantist error.

And the winner is…Fr. Chazal and Catholic Truth!

From the Foreword by Bishop Richard Williamson

“Fr. Anthony Cekada…argues as though sedevacantism (the See-vacant doctrine that the Popes since Vatican II have not been Popes at all) is not merely one opinion in a difficult and highly disputed question. He presents it as a dogmatic certainty, to refuse which means that one is not Catholic. Fr. Chazal has a measure of sympathy for sedevacantists (he prefers them to liberals), and he shows charity towards Fr. Cekada, but the great merit of Contra Cekadam is that he proves to any reasonable reader that, at the very least, no Catholic is obliged to accept the sedevacantist position. Fr. Cekada writes as though he is a master of theology and of Canon Law, but Fr. Chazal has looked up the theologians and the Canons in question and he proves that they are far from proving that the See of Rome has been vacant at any time since Vatican II.

“To do this Fr. Chazal goes in turn through the Church’s theologians, canonists and Popes, St. Thomas Aquinas, Scripture and history with a final resort to common sense. Let us here evoke briefly the theologians and the canonists on whom sedevacantists rely heavily.

“Their favorite theologian is St. Robert Bellarmine who held that any Pope becoming a heretic automatically ceases to be Pope. But Fr. Chazal opens the books and finds that this opinion is by no means the common opinion of Church theologians, and that Bellarmine himself requires that the Pope concerned be first given two warnings before he is deposed. For indeed, as many other famous theologians argue, the Pope is not just an individual who can lose the faith personally, but he is also head of a worldwide society which cannot function without a head. Nor does the personal loss of faith necessarily impede his headship of the Church. Therefore they argue, for the sake of the Church as a whole, God preserves the Pope’s headship until the highest competent Church authorities can make a public declaration of his heresy (to prevent chaos in the Church), and then and only then does God dispose him. No such declaration has been made since Vatican II.

“Sedevacantists also love Canon 188.4 which states that public defection from the faith on the part of a cleric means automatic loss of his office. But many other Canons and other sections of Canon 188 clearly show that this “public defection” must include the cleric’s intent to resign by such acts as, for instance, attempting marriage or joining a sect, and also there must be a warning and official monitions before the cleric loses his office. Common justice calls it the right of self-defense.

“In fact Fr. Chazal presents a multitude of arguments which prove the human wisdom and patience of Mother Church in dealing with faulty ministers. For the sake of the Church as a whole, it is not only the Pope who does not have his head immediately cut off, as sedevacantists seem to think. The wheels of God may grind exceeding small but they also grid slowly, as the proverb says.

“If anybody wishes to learn just how little the position of the sedevacantists is binding on Catholics, by all means let them read this brief and entertaining study by Fr. Chazal.” – Bishop Richard Williamson.

From the pages of CONTRA CEKADAM: “In this current and confused situation of the Church, sedevacantism only adds to the confusion and scattering of sheep, which fall off the cliff for one false reasoning, for the omission of one theological distinction, or for the extrapolation of one text over the others… So I will not lead my sheep on that stray path…”

“You contend that the opinion stating ‘a heretical pope still retains his jurisdiction’ was abandoned’, nay, that all theologians rallied under St. Robert Bellarmine’s Fifth Opinion, which is the automatic fall from office vi haeresi. Moreover you contend that there is no sound theological base for any other opinion, that the opinion is now more or less obligatory, and you dare me to quote you ‘Theologians of equal stature.’”

“In my simplicity, I went to consult the most recent and renowned collection of Theologians, the massive Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique (henceforth referred as DTC). Their conclusion is that ‘The opinion of Bellarmine is in no way [a aucun titre] guaranteed by the Church, nor adopted by the whole body of theologians’ (tome VII, col. 1714 to 1717, Infallibilite du Pape, last article on the specific question of the heretical Pope)…In all honesty I have not found any theologians, Popes or Fathers stating the theory of automated loss of office, except the wicked William of Ockham…and Coronata”

“Sedevacantism is antinomic to many laws of God, of the Church, but also of reason, of sanity.

“The constitution of the Church requires a reigning Pope, hence, it is perhaps conclavism that shall prevail within sedevacantism…Sedevacantists deny that heresy calls for a canonical procedure for Popes, bishops and priests…How does the Church function, even in normal times, if a cleric loses office ipso facto without any sentence of warning? To what kind of perpetual infightings and separations is this leading to, except those we see among Protestants…”

“What is most worrying is the individualist twist of sedevacantism: the idea that an INDIVIDUAL’s perception of a fact, grave though it may be, leads to the loss of office of a prelate or a magistrate. There is a foul smell of modern democracy here…[In fact] Sedevacantism is at the origin of many bad fruits, and the presence of unhinged private judgment, what we warn most about sedevacantism, is clearly showing. In this unfortunate process, it also picks up previous errors, if not heresies: Feenyism (US), conclavism (Spain at first0, millenarism or semi-millenarism (Argentina), ecclesiovacantism, charismatism (Brazil), Freemasonry (Trento Union in Mexico), fifteism (US), practical liberalism (Italy)…and France is not left behind with a notorious layman dispensing sacraments. There is an undeniable flurry of errors into which sedevacantists are falling… Our duty is to keep the faith, not to enter into new errors…

“Luther was surprised, disappointed, that after having thrown the Pope out, many popes immediately proliferated: a similar chaos reigns over the sede movement as a whole…The Apostolicity would be cut if we said that the see is vacant, and would have to remain so indefinitely. This is impossible; because the Church is apostolic and must remain so. Moreover, to make as if there was a vacancy, one would have to prove that such is the reality; but we do not see that sufficient reasons have been provided to us. And we recall here the very grave difficulty brought by the objective affirmation of total vacancy. The militant Church would then be deprived of a visible head since 1963, or even since October 9^th, 1958. What would be called into question would be the Apostolicity itself of the militant Church, which apostolicity is a Mark of the Church…it is indeed by nature that the militant Church must have a visible head…

“VERY IMPORTANT ALSO: GARRIGOU, JOURNET, VAN NOORT, REGATILLO, OTTAVIANI and plenty of other authoritative theologians were alive during the pontificate of John XXIII or Paul VI, yet it never evfer crossed their minds that he was not the Pope. How can you say then that your theory is obvious, or worse, that it causes a grave obligation on the simple faithful, when even the most renowned theologians of our time never discerned the issue with John XXIII, and even Paul VI?...Moreover, unquestionable Saints like PADRE PIO never raised the question of the validity of Conciliar popes, while being very aware of their errors, and perhaps even their appurtenance to Freemasonry; telling Fr. Villa to expose the connivance and involvement of all guilty prelates. Fr. Villa never became sedevacantist…

[CONCERNING CUM EX APOSTOLATUS OFFICIO, the 1559 Papal Bull of Paul IV]: “The next trick, once the terrain of canon law becomes too bumpy, is to claim: [Pope Francis is not Pope] since he never got to the Sovereign Pontificate because he was already a heretic. Cum ex bars such from access to the Pontificate. Cum ex is dogmatic, infallible. End of debate. So it goes.

[But as for Cum ex apostolatus officio being dogmatic]…all Catholic theologians deny it to be such…

“Cum ex has not been retained, over the course of the jurisprudence of the Church… [It] was not in force at the start of the present crisis of the Church…If it was in force at a given time, it was in turn superceded by many decretals [subsequent to it]…Fr. Gregory Hesse explained that Cum ex was not used, save for its principle (that the holding of an office is incompatible with heresy), because of the regrettable tendency of Paul IV to imprison clerics without trial…

“Why not accept that the situation [the question of sedevacantism] is not in our hands, begging God to return the public life of the Church to the normalcy it enjoyed for so many centuries?...

“We can conclude that sedevacantism proceeds from error and generates error…We are not saying that St. Robert Bellarmine’s fifth opinion is both false and dangerous, but your interpretation of it. You make it mandatory, necessary, binding in conscience, which is something Bellarmine never did, and something Benedict XIV condemns…

“In the meantime we urge all Catholics unite around, or at least save their skin by the one principle ingrained in Divine Law: Separation from heretics. That principle is both sufficient and necessary. As heresies deepen in Rome, the duty to follow it [the principle] becomes more stringent, not more lax, as Bishop Fellay [of the Conciliarized neo-SSPX] would like us to believe…– Fr. Francois Chazal.

“Why not accept that the situation is not in our hands, begging God to return the public life of the Church to the normalcy it enjoyed for so many centuries?...We can conclude that sedevacantism proceeds from error and generates error…We are not saying that St. Robert Bellarmine’s fifth opinion is both false and dangerous, but your interpretation of it. You make it mandatory, necessary, binding in conscience, which is something Bellarmine never did, and something Benedict XIV condemns…

“In the meantime we urge all Catholics unite around, or at least save their skin by the one principle ingrained in Divine Law: Separation from heretics. That principle is both sufficient and necessary. As heresies deepen in Rome, the duty to follow it [the principle] becomes more stringent, not more lax, as Bishop Fellay [of the Conciliarized neo-SSPX] would like us to believe…” – Fr. Francois Chazal.

“Why not accept that the situation is not in our hands, begging God to return the public life of the Church to the normalcy it enjoyed for so many centuries?...We can conclude that sedevacantism proceeds from error and generates error…We are not saying that St. Robert Bellarmine’s fifth opinion is both false and dangerous, but your interpretation of it. You make it mandatory, necessary, binding in conscience, which is something Bellarmine never did, and something Benedict XIV condemns…

“In the meantime we urge all Catholics unite around, or at least save their skin by the one principle ingrained in Divine Law: Separation from heretics. That principle is both sufficient and necessary. As heresies deepen in Rome, the duty to follow it [the principle] becomes more stringent, not more lax, as Bishop Fellay [of the Conciliarized neo-SSPX] would like us to believe…” – Fr. Francois Chazal.

“Bottom line: every traditional Catholic needs to read this brilliant and timely refutation of the grave error of sedevacantism” – Hugh Akins