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.