Contra Cekadam by Fr. Francois Chazal - Print version (book)
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My Response to Fr. Chazal’s “Contra Cekadam”
Fr. François Chazal
by Rev. Anthony Cekada
FATHER FRANÇOIS Chazal is former member of the Society of St. Pius X who left the organization several years ago when the prospect of an SSPX-Vatican deal looked particularly likely, and with a number of other similarly-minded ex-SSPX priests, formed a loose association of priests known as “the Resistance.”
The Resistance priests maintain they are carrying on the authentic teaching of SSPX founder Abp. Marcel Lefebvre, which was to “recognize” the Vatican II popes as true popes, but to resist on a case-by-case basis papally-approved teachings, laws and commands that the archbishop and others decided were evil or erroneous.
This position is now generally referred to as “R&R” or “Recognize and Resist” — a label, by the way, that I myself coined in a December 2005 article in The Remnant. Several years ago, I circulated a video which summed up the position as The Pope Speaks: You Decide: Traditionalists Who Destroy the Papacy.
As I and others have repeatedly pointed out, the R&R position simply cannot be reconciled with traditional Catholic teaching on the indefectibility and the infallibility of the Church. Once you say (as all traditionalists do) that the officially-approved post-Vatican II teachings contain error or evil, the only logical conclusion you can come to is that the men who promulgated them had no authority when they did so — sedevacantism, in other words. Otherwise, you wind up with a defecting Church.
I made this argument in a 1995 article Traditionalists, Infallibility and the Pope (since revised in 2006), which has since then been widely circulated as a booklet (at least 30,000 copies) and on the internet.
No one that I know of on the R&R side has, in all these years, published a credible refutation of this rather short work.
When a correspondent of mine challenged Fr. Chazal to do so, Fr. Chazal produced a seven-part, thirty-nine page monograph entitled “Contra Cekadam,” which is now being circulated in installments on the internet.
One would think that such a vast mountain of verbiage would require me to produce an equally prolix response. But no, Fr. Chazal simply missed the point of my argument, and wandered off into the bushes to talk about something else. I don’t feel any obligation to follow him there — or, as Bergolio might say, to “Accompany Fr. Chazal in his journey of discernment.”
The following brief comments to a correspondent will suffice.
•   •   •
Thanks for sending along the Chazal docuмent. It is hardly, as Fr. Chazal seems to think, a point-by-point refutation of my argument in Traditionalists, Infallibility and the Pope.
Fr. Chazal’s Contra Cekadam doesn’t even state the argument of the “Cekadam” in question, still less refute it. Here, for the record, is the argument I made in the booklet:

• Officially-sanctioned Vatican II and post-Vatican II teachings and laws embody errors and/or promote evil.
• Because the Church is indefectible, her teaching cannot change, and because she is infallible, her laws cannot give evil.
• It is therefore impossible that the errors and evils officially sanctioned in Vatican II and post-Vatican II teachings and laws could have proceeded from the authority of the Church.
• Those who promulgate such errors and evils must somehow lack real authority in the Church.
• Canonists and theologians teach that defection from the faith, once it becomes manifest, brings with it automatic loss of ecclesiastical office (authority). They apply this principle even to a pope who, in his personal capacity, somehow becomes a heretic.
• Canonists and theologians also teach that a public heretic, by divine law, is incapable of being validly elected pope or obtaining papal authority.
• Even popes have acknowledged the possibility that a heretic could one day end up on the throne of Peter. In 1559 Pope Paul IV decreed that the election of a heretic to the papacy would be invalid, and that the man elected would lack all authority.
• Since the Church cannot defect, the best explanation for the post-Vatican II errors and evils we repeatedly encounter is that they proceed from individuals who, despite their occupation of the Vatican and of various diocesan cathedrals, publicly defected from the faith, and therefore do not objectively possess canonical authority.

If Fr. Chazal agrees with the statements in points 1 (the changes are evil) and 2 (and the Church, by Christ’s promise, cannot give evil/error), but he nevertheless still insists the Vatican II popes are true popes possessing authority from Christ, he maintains in effect that the Church of Christ has defected and that Christ’s promises are void.
As for the rest, Fr. Chazal simply:

• Recycles opinions on a heretical pope that were eventually abandoned after St. Robert Bellarmine.
• Attempts to apply criteria pertaining to ecclesiastical crimes when sedevacantists maintain that the public sin of heresy, not the crime, is what prevents a heretical pope from obtaining or retaining the papacy.
• Refloats the phony Adrian VI quote.
• Repeats the Paul-vs-Peter canard [see Appendix at end of the post here] on fraternal correction for a moral fault, which does not solve the problem of the Church defecting wholesale by promulgating theological errors and evil universal laws.
• In his treatment of Scripture as a “refutation” of sedevacantism, ignores St. Paul’s own assertion that he could in fact, “preach another Gospel,” for which even he himself would become “anathema.”
• Recycles supposed incidents from history to demonstrate that there have been heretic popes before, but which incidents (a) are part of the standard arguments of protestants who reject papal infallibility, and (b) have been repeatedly refuted by Catholic dogmatic theologians.

Fr. Chazal’s arguments on each of these points still do not get him out of the theological pickle that points 1 and 2 of my original argument put him in — the Chazalian equation that works out to:

• Evil changes + true popes = defected Church.

Good luck getting out of that one, Father Chazal!

According to cuм ex, it can be argued that St. Paul was an invalid Apostle since "before this date", he not only deviated from the Catholic faith, he persecuted those who held it.

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Oddly when flat-earthers do that you have no problem with it. Interesting. It's that simple.

So, I say, your charges of schism and heresy and whatever else are short-sighted, without specifics and also based on circuмstances which do not exist anymore.  A soldier lost behind enemy lines, after his entire platoon is shot dead, is not charged with AWOL and thrown in prison for insubordination because he got lost and missed the helicopter ride out.  Circuмstances can alter what is required and what one’s duty is, under the law. Even canon law spells this out.  In the same way, lay folk and simple priests, who are living in a spiritual war zone, with no day-to-day leadship, nor guidance available from Rome, are given much leeway in making decisions, especially when the “generals” or “captains” of their army are traitors and infiltrators.  

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Oddly when flat-earthers do that you have no problem with it. Interesting. It's that simple.

[Catholic theologians] all insist that even in this [non-infallible] portion of his ordinary magisterium the Holy Father has the right to demand, and actually has demanded, a definite and unswerving internal assent to his teaching from all Catholics.
...
It might be definitely understood, however, that the Catholic’s duty to accept the teachings conveyed in the encyclicals even when the Holy Father does not propose such teachings as a part of his infallible magisterium is not based merely upon the dicta of the theologians. The authority which imposes this obligation is that of the Roman Pontiff himself. To the Holy Father’s responsibility of caring for the sheep of Christ’s fold, there corresponds, on the part of the Church’s membership, the basic obligation of following his directions, in doctrinal as well as disciplinary matters. In this field, God has given the Holy Father a kind of infallibility distinct from the charism of doctrinal infallibility in the strict sense. He has so constructed and ordered the Church that those who follow the directives given to the entire kingdom of God on earth will never be brought into the position of ruining themselves spiritually through this obedience. Our Lord dwells within His Church in such a way that those who obey disciplinary and doctrinal directives of this society can never find themselves displeasing God through their adherence to the teachings and the commands given to the universal Church militant. Hence there can be no valid reason to discountenance even the non-infallible teaching authority of Christ’s vicar on earth.
...
It is, of course, possible that the Church might come to modify its stand on some detail of teaching presented as non-infallible matter in a papal encyclical. The nature of the auctoritas providentiae doctrinalis within the Church is such, however, that this fallibility extends to questions of relatively minute detail or of particular application. The body of doctrine on the rights and duties of labor, on the Church and State, or on any other subject treated extensively in a series of papal letters directed to and normative for the entire Church militant could not be radically or completely erroneous. The infallible security Christ wills that His disciples should enjoy within His Church is utterly incompatible with such a possibility.

More generalities which do not further the discussion...BE SPECIFIC.

If you charge R&R (or the sspx, or whatever) with disobeying the magisterium, tell me exactly where they do so.  I've posted quote after quote (in other posts) where new-rome officials have said that V2 only requires 'religious conditional assent' and they admit it can be questioned.  You, however, say that one who does not accept V2 is "refusing submission".  

They say that only CONDITIONAL submission is required.  You over-generalize and refuse to admit that "conditions" exist.  You erroneouly hold V2's magisterium to a higher teaching authority than new-rome does.  This is the point.