Sedevacantist
Watch…
QUESTIONING
FR. CEKADA’S JUDGMENT
For decades, Fr. Anthony Cekada has been
publicly promoting the position that the man elected to the papal office by the
Church, and accepted as Pope by the Church, is not, in fact, a true Pope. In
other words, for decades Fr. Cekada has been publicly promoting his own personal opinion, even though it is in direct
opposition to the public judgment of
the Church. Added to this, and demonstrating a profound lack of humility, he
has publicly mocked, ridiculed and engaged in childishness name-calling against
those Catholics who refuse to accept his personal opinion regarding this
matter.
Because Fr. Cekada has chosen to reject the judgment of the Church, and instead present his personal opinion as a fact which other Catholics must accept, we believe it is entirely appropriate for us to consider whether Fr. Cekada has the ability to form correct and sound judgments on moral and doctrinal issues. For our example, we will consider Fr. Cekada’s personal judgment regarding the Terri Schiavo case.
The
Terri Schiavo Case
In 1990, Mrs. Terri Schiavo suffered cardiac
arrest, which resulted in brain injury due to lack of oxygen. She survived, but
was left in a debilitated condition and unable to care for herself. Her
condition was officially listed as “a persistent vegetative state,” although
her parents were convinced that she was conscious (as the pictures of her
looking into her parent’s eyes confirm).
In
1998, Mrs. Schiavo’s husband, who had met another woman (who he would
eventually marry), petitioned the court to have Terri put to death by removing
her feeding tube. When the court granted the petition, a firestorm erupted. Her
parents, who were shocked at the ruling, begged for help. Their cries were
heard, and the public responded. Pro-life groups everywhere raised their voice
in protest, as did the governor of Florida. President Bush himself sought to
intervene, and even the Vatican spoke out by declaring that food and water
(ordinary means of sustaining life) could not be withheld.
Now, you may be wondering, where did Fr.
Cekada stand on this issue? If you don’t already know, the answer may surprise
you. In the face of the public outrage and the cries of desperation from Mrs.
Schiavo’s parents, Fr. Cekada publicly
sided with the Liberal court (rarely does Fr. Cekada keep his controversial
opinions to himself), as did his fellow Sedevacantist, Bishop Donald Sanborn. Needless
to say, this did not sit well with many of Fr. Cekada’s friends and
parishioners, one of whom eventually left Fr. Cekada’s church and revealed what
had transpired behind the scenes. Let’s take a look at what this parishioner,
Thomas Droleskey, wrote publicly after the event. He explains what he did in an
attempt to help Fr. Cekada and Bishop Sanborn see their error, and how they reacted
when he dared to question their controversial judgment. Mr. Droleskey wrote:
“The other compromise that we had to
make during our stay at Saint Gertrude the Great Church involved the atrocious
manner in which the murder of Mrs. Theresa Maria Schindler-Schiavo by
dehydration and starvation was justified by Bishop Sanborn and Father Cekada.
The moral principle at work in the Schiavo case was really simple: one can
never undertake any action that has as its only possible end the death of an
innocent human being. The only thing that can result from the removal of food
and water from a living human being is death, and I went to great lengths last
year to provide Bishop Dolan with the documentary evidence of the cruel death
that Mrs. Schiavo suffered while no one was permitted to alleviate her
suffering in the slightest. Such a death can never be justified before God.
Bishop Sanborn and Father Cekada got the
facts of the Terri Schiavo case wrong. They refused to accept evidence of
Catholic medical experts. They got their moral facts wrong. They refused to
concede that the administration of food and water by artificial means, which is
today not all painful and not at all costly,
facts that Father Cekada stubbornly and arrogantly refused to recognize and
accept as he ignored the cold, hard evidence that was presented to him on
these matters, is a matter of ordinary care, not medical ‘treatment,’
extraordinary or ordinary.
… I tried my very best last year for
there to be a reconsideration of their mistakes and thus a public retraction of
their views, some of which were nothing other than rank utilitarianism wrapped in sarcasm and arrogance. … [many
Catholics] remain scandalized and bewildered by Bishop Sanborn’s and Father Cekada’s refusal to re-examine their
positions, convinced that they can't be trusted on other issues when they could
get a matter of basic moral truth so wrong and persist in their error so
defiantly.
Bishop Sanborn steadfastly refused
offers that I made to him on several occasions to have Dr. Paul Bryne speak to
him about the matter of ‘brain death.’ Father
Cekada mocked publicly the neurological expertise of Dr. James Gebel, Jr.”[1]
What the Terri Schiavo case shows us is
that Fr. Cekada not only lacks a basic moral sense of right and wrong (you
don’t put an innocent person to death), a basic knowledge of Catholic teaching
(you don’t withhold ordinary means of sustaining human life), and the inability
to form a sound judgment, but it also reveals that he “stubbornly and
arrogantly refuses” to accept facts and hard evidence which proves him wrong when
it is presented to him. It also shows that he will not shy away from publicly
promoting his controversial judgments, even when what he is advocating is the
death of an innocent person.[2] Clearly,
Fr. Cekada does not shy away from rushing in where angels fear to tread.
We will now consider an example of how
Fr. Cekada justifies holding to his personal
opinion, even when it is directly contrary to the teaching of the Church.
Fr.
Cekada and the Fourth Council of Constantinople
After our recent interview with Louie Verrecchio,
Fr. Cekada posted a comment on a message forum in response to a point we made.
In the interview, we noted that a council of the Church forbade Catholics to remove
the name of their Patriarch (the Pope is the Patriarch of the West) from the
liturgy before the Church itself rendered a judgment concerning any alleged
crime (which is precisely what Fr. Cekada chooses to do when he offers the
Mass). The same council also forbade Catholics to formally separate from their
Patriarch before the Church rendered a judgment, attaching the grave penalty of
excommunication to any layperson who would do so. Here is the council’s
declaration:
“As
divine scripture clearly proclaims, Do not find fault before you investigate,
and understand first and then find fault, and does our law judge a person
without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? Consequently this holy and universal synod justly and
fittingly declares and lays down that no lay person or monk or cleric should
separate himself from communion with his own patriarch before a careful enquiry
and judgment in synod, even if he alleges that he knows of some crime
perpetrated by his patriarch, and he must not refuse to include his patriarch's
name during the divine mysteries or offices.
In the same way we command that bishops
and priests who are in distant dioceses and regions should behave similarly
towards their own metropolitans, and metropolitans should do the same with
regard to their own patriarchs. If
anyone shall be found defying this holy synod, he is to be debarred from all
priestly functions and status if he is a bishop or cleric; if a monk or lay
person, he must be excluded from all communion and meetings of the church
[i.e., excommunicated] until he is
converted by repentance and reconciled.”[3]
Now, in the face of such a clear teaching,
you may be wondering how Fr. Cekada can possibly justify doing precisely what this
ecumenical council of the Catholic Church forbids. As noted above, Fr. Cekada tried
to defend himself on this very point on a message forum, using his real name. On
the forum, he attempted to justify his position using two utterly absurd arguments,
which we will now address.
Fr.
Cekada’s “Circular Argument”
Here is his first argument:
(1) “Invoking the 10th Canon of
Constantinople is a circular argument, because the very question being argued
is ‘Are the post-Conciliar popes true popes (Patriarchs of the West) in the
first place?’ No pope, no sweat! (…) If someone is not a real patriarch (pope)
to begin with … there can hardly be a requirement for ‘a formal judgment of the
Church.’”
As
anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see, it is Cekada’s argument that is circular, since he begins with an
argument he has not proven, and, in fact, has no authority to declare (the
Vatican II Popes are not true Popes), in order to circumvent the teaching of an
ecumenical council which condemns him for making that very argument (and for
separating from them, and removing their name from the canon of the Mass,
before the Church has rendered a judgment). In other words, Fr. Cekada attempts
to get around Constantinople IV by doing the very thing the council condemned! Cekada’s
argument could be used just as easily to reject the infallible teaching of a
council (“we only have to accept the infallible teaching of true Councils. No true council, no
sweat”). Indeed, even a fifth grader can distinguish between actual proof and
assuming what has not been proven.
The other problem with Fr. Cekada’s
argument is that all of the recent Popes (which he rejects) were legally
elected by the Church; they all accepted the office; and they were all accepted
by the Church as Pope. Therefore, according to the Church’s judgment, they have all been true Popes. The judgment
of the Church, with respect to the validity of a Pope or council, falls into
the category of dogmatic facts, which
is considered by common theological opinion to be infallible. In other words, when the Church accepts a man as Pope
or a council as legitimate, this judgment itself is infallible. Msgr. Van Noort
explains:
“DOGMATIC FACTS. A dogmatic fact is one
that has not been revealed, yet is so intimately connected with a doctrine of
faith that without certain knowledge of the fact there can be no certain
knowledge of the doctrine. For example, was
the [First] Vatican Council truly ecumenical? Was Pius IX a legitimate pope?
Was the election of Pius XI valid? Such questions must be decided with
certainty before decrees issued by any council or pope can be accepted as
infallibly true or binding on the Church. It
is evident, then, that the Church must be infallible in judging of such facts,
and since the Church is infallible in believing as well as in teaching, it
follows that the practically unanimous
consent of the bishops and faithful in accepting a council as ecumenical, or a
Roman Pontiff as legitimately elected, gives absolute and infallible certainty
of the fact” (The Church of Christ,
p. 290).
Clearly, accepting the fact that the recent Popes have been Popes,
based upon the authority of the Church teaching, and then drawing a conclusion
based upon that premise, is not engaging in “circular reasoning.” On the contrary,
refusing to accept these Popes is to deny the infallible judgment of the
Church, which is a mortal sin against faith.[4] So Fr. Cekada’s first argument clearly failed.
Fr.
Cekada’s “Word Games”
Now we will consider his second attempt
to get around the teaching of Constantinople IV, this time, by playing some
“word games.” Please read the following very carefully and ask yourself if this
strikes you as the response of someone who is truly trying to conform his mind
to the mind of the Church, or rather someone who is “stubbornly and arrogantly”
seeking any way possible to get around what the Church teaches. Fr. Cekada
wrote:
(2) “In 2006 Benedict XVI renounced the
title ‘Patriarch of the West.’ The Vatican explained that it ‘appeared for the
first time in the ‘Annuario Pontificio’ in 1863... the title ‘Patriarch of the
West,’ never very clear, over history has become obsolete and practically
unusable.’ Are Messrs. Siscoe and Salza really crypto-sedes who don’t recognize
Benedict’s authority to renounce the title?”
Do we really have to tell Fr. Cekada
that Constantinople is condemning those who separate from their bishops by
private judgment, whether they use the term “Patriarch,” or “Bishop,” or
“Ordinary” or “Primate”? Must we actually tell Fr. Cekada that whether or not
the name of the office changes, the
council’s condemnation of the principle
error (formally separating from legal holders of the office by private
judgment) still applies? And why would Fr. Cekada make an argument based upon
“Benedict’s authority to renounce the title” when Cekada does not believe that
Benedict, an alleged antipope, had
any authority? These arguments reveal that Fr. Cekada will attempt to defend
himself at all costs, no matter how embarrassing the results – and that he has,
in fact, hit a new low.
We also note that when Constantinople IV
issued the decree, the Bishop of Rome was one of the five Patriarchs of the
Church (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem). As the Catholic Encyclopedia explains, the Bishop
of Rome has always been known as the Patriarch of the West:
“Apart from his universal primacy, the
pope had always been unquestioned
Patriarch of the West” (Original Catholic
Encyclopedia, 1913, The Roman Rite).
We can further see that Fr. Cekada is
playing games with words in an attempt to get around Constantinople’s
condemnation when we consider that Cekada had formally separated from John Paul
II (declared him to be a false Pope) and refused to include his name in the
Mass before Pope Benedict allegedly abandoned the title Patriarch of the West. So, Fr. Cekada is clearly not being honest
here, but simply trying to find any way possible to excuse himself for
disobeying the definitive teaching of an ecumenical council, which he very well
knows condemns him and his Sedevacantist position.
As if the definitive condemnation of an
ecumenical council weren’t enough to sink Cekada and his Sedevacantist ship, we
also have a more recent papal teaching that affirms the Church’s condemnation
of separating from the Pope by private judgment and excluding his name from the
Mass. The teaching is found in the encyclical Ex Quo by Pope Benedict XIV (1740–1758). In the encyclical,
Benedict XIV is absolutely clear about the target of such private judgments
(and exclusion from the canon of the Mass), and it is none other than the “Apostolic Pontiff” himself. The Pope wrote:
“Ivo of Flaviniaca who writes: ‘Whosoever
does not pronounce the name of the Apostolic one in the canon for whatever
reason should realize that he is separated from the communion of the whole
world’ (Chronicle, p. 228); or by the authority of the famous Alcuin: ‘It is generally agreed that those who do
not for any reason recall the memory of the Apostolic pontiff in the course of
the sacred mysteries according to custom are, as the blessed Pelagius teaches,
separated from the communion of the entire world’ (de Divinis Officiis, bk. 1, chap. 12).
“Pope Pelagius II who held the Apostolic
See in the sixth century of the Church gives this weightier statement on Our present
subject in his letter: ‘I am greatly astonished at your separation from the
rest of the Church and I cannot equably endure it. For Augustine, mindful that
the Lord established the foundation of the Church on the Apostolic sees, says
that whosoever removes himself from the
authority and communion of the prelates of those sees is in schism. He
states plainly that there is no church apart from one which is firmly
established on the pontifical bases of the Apostolic sees. Thus how can you believe that you are not
separated from the communion of the whole world if you do not commemorate my name during the sacred mysteries,
according to custom?”[5]
One wonders what sort of sophistical
argumentation Fr. Cekada will try to use to get around this papal teaching. After
all, Cekada is a master of the rhetorical skills of the sophists (particularly
with his use of ridicule and sarcasm), which enables him to appeal to the
emotions, and hence the will, of his readers. This tactic serves to
divert his readers’ attention away from the intellectual
deficiency and general weakness of his arguments, which, if he keeps them
entertained and laughing, they are less likely to spot. Unfortunately for Fr.
Cekada, to reject the public judgment of the Church and the infallible dogmatic
fact of who is Pope, is to separate oneself from that same Church (as
Constantinople IV and Ex Quo make
clear) and commit objective mortal sin against both faith and charity.[6]
In closing, Fr. Cekada has demonstrated
himself to be an individual who lacks the ability to make sound moral
judgments. Whether it’s mocking the neurological expertise of a physician, or
the legal training of an opposing Catholic writer, or even the authority of his
own superiors, Fr. Cekada is a man of extraordinary pride, even to the point of
exalting his own personal opinions
above the public and infallible judgment
of the Catholic Church.
In the words of his fellow Sedevacantist,
Thomas Droleskey, Fr. Cekada “stubbornly and arrogantly” refuses to recognize “cold,
hard evidence” that would convince any reasonable person of sound mind and good
will, even concerning basic moral truths and Catholic teaching. Thus, we
conclude, as did Mr. Droleskey, that Cekada “can’t be trusted on other issues,
when he could get a matter of basic moral truth so wrong and persist in his
error so defiantly.” Those who choose to follow Fr. Cekada do so at the risk of
their own salvation, and they will not be able to claim ignorance when they
arrive at their Particular Judgment, which, given the state of the world, could
be sooner than they expect.
[1] “Sanctimony Won't
Work This Time”, by Thomas A. Droleskey, November 8, 2009. http://sggscandal.com/articles/sanctimony.htm
[2]
It’s fair to
include spiritual, not just physical, death in our assessment, since Fr.
Cekada, in his capacity as a priest, continuously works to lead souls out of
the Church and into his Sedevacantist sect.
[3] Fourth Council of
Constantinople, Canon 10.
[4] In his 1951 book, “On the Value of Theological Notes and the
Criteria for Discerning Them,” Fr.
Sixtus Cartechini, S.J. explains that the rejection of a dogmatic fact
constitutes a mortal sin against faith. See:
http://www.the-pope.com/theolnotes.html.
[5] Pope Benedict XIV, Ex Quo (On the Euchologion), March 1, 1756.
[6] Rejecting a
dogmatic fact is a sin against faith (see footnote 2), and separating from the
Church (schism) is a sin against charity (Summa
Theologiae, IIa IIƦ, 39, 1, ad 3).