Great Doctors of the
Church have written works named from the author of the errors being
refuted by the Doctor, for instance St Augustine's “Against
Cresconius” or St Jerome's “Against Jovinianus”. Both
Cresconius and Jovinianus have today been largely or altogether
forgotten, but the works of the Doctors live on because the Doctors
lay out good Catholic doctrine in refuting the errors.
In the same
way Fr Chazal names his refutation of sedevacantism (the See-vacant
doctrine that the popes since Vatican II have not been popes at all)
from Fr Anthony Cekada, a long-standing and outstanding defender of
the sedevacantist position. Fr Cekada's arguments and opinions have
acted like the grain of sand inside an oyster, which by the
irritation which it produces makes the oyster produce a pearl.
Fr Cekada argues as
though sedevacantism 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.
Paperback. 104pp.