OUR LADY OF FATIMA  CATHOLIC CHURCH

"When I was a Boy I Served a Term..."

September 4th 2005

This morning I was out taking a "constitutional" walk and saw an amazing sight in the distance: a pink gopher turtle ! I thought I was seeing things ("a lot like Dr. Doolittle's great pink Sea Snail", I thought). However, on closer investigation, I discovered it was true - someone had spray-painted the shell so that the turtle would doubtless be visible to passing motorists ! "What fools !" I thought, "Don't you know why a turtle's shell is brown ?" Then answering my own question I continued: "To protect it from predators of course !"

This afternoon I stumbled across another "pink turtle" of a kind on a sedevacantist e-mail list - a diatribe against me ! Someone had forwarded the following quote (which I had posted elsewhere on this web-site) to Father Anthony Cekada, a priest ordained by the late Archbishop Lefebvre in the mid 1970s and subsequently dismissed from the Society of St Pius X together with 8 other priests in 1983. (That is quite another story and beyond the scope of this column). The quotation reads:

WHAT PAPAL INFALLIBILITY DOES NOT MEAN

"The infallibility of the Pope does not mean that he cannot sin; it does not mean that he cannot err in matters of science; it does not mean that he cannot err in political matters; it does not mean that he cannot err in his personal theological views; it does not mean that he cannot err in his private theological utterances relating to faith or morals; it does not mean that he cannot err in his personal decisions; it does not mean that he cannot err in his measures concerning the discipline and practice of the Church, for example: sanctioning or dissolving an Order, precepts of worship, ecclesiastical rules etc."

Illustrations for Sermons and Instructions, 
Rev. Charles J. Callan O.P., New York, 1916, page 147

Father Cekada duly responded in characteristic stinging fashion as follows:

FR. CEKADA'S REPLY

Dear XXXXXXXX,

By puffing this passage as a "refutation" of the principle that the Church is infallible when promulgating universal disciplinary laws, Fr. Fulham is either suffering from a bad proof-texting hangover from his Billy Graham days, or just being duplicitous in hopes of fooling the theologically ignorant.

I think it's the latter, because:

1. "Err" here plainly means nothing more than to be mistaken or to make a bad practical judgment.

2. Only a complete theological moron would claim that a passage in a book of pop sermon illustrations somehow "trumps" the teaching of major treatises on Catholic dogma written by the academic theologians I quoted (Van Noort, Hermann, Dorsch, Schultes, Zubizarreta, Iragui, Salaverri and others).

3. Sixteen pages earlier in the same book, Fr. Callan uses a quote that supports the infallibility of the Church in her universal disciplinary laws:

"Now, as to the subject matter of ecclesiastical legislation, and the extent to which it can go in prescribing of prohibiting -- all this is to be determined by the Church herself, who is the supreme judge of all such questions, since to her alone has been committed the charge of the entire flock. In saying so much we must guard ourselves against a misapprehension. We do not mean that the Church can make laws and impose duties arbitrarily, as though it rested with her to fix for herself what she fancies, but in the sense that she is Divinely invested with supreme authority from above, both in deciding questions regarding her own power, and in framing and promulgating laws under the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, who has promised to abide with her for ever, and to defend her from all error.-- Bishop John S. Vaughn." Callan, Illustrations, 131.


4. And Fr. Callan himself, in any case, warns the reader that his treatment of subjects in his book is incomplete, limited and fragmentary:

"In submitting to the public the present collection of Illustrations for Sermons and Instructions, the editor wishes respectfully to call the attention of its readers to the fact that it does not in any sense pretend to be complete. Both as to the number of the subjects touched upon, and the manner of treating these subjects, the editor is, therefore, fully aware that this compilation cannot be considered other than limited and fragmentary" Editor's Preface, iii.


Fr. Fulham, then, has distorted the quote on just about every level possible -- plain meaning, authority of work cited, meaning from context, and author's intention. It's a quadruple-header for intellectual dishonesty.

I am going to use a print-out of the page from his site in the part of my canon law course this fall when I teach the seminarians about methods for researching and writing about issues in theology and canon law.

It's Exhibit A for the dishonest and low level of traditionalist "theological" polemic they'll face.

I went back out for another walk after reading this and mused what my response to this invective should be. As I walked around the Church driveway the immensely funny song from Gilbert and Sullivan's light operetta: H.M.S. Pinafore that begins with the words: "When I was a lad I served a term, as office boy to an Attorney's firm" came to mind. The words of a later verse describing how Sir Joseph Porter (singing his autobiography for us) advanced in Parliament are particularly apposite to the invective above:

I always voted at my party's call,
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
I thought so little, they rewarded me
By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navee! 

I was then reminded of some earlier history in my own life and thought I would recount these events here as they have a great deal to do with my response to the attack above. (As an aside I was thinking with all the reminiscing of late in these columns I really ought to rename this section of the website "memory lane"). 

Back in the early 90s, as a seminarian in the Society of St Pius X, one of my duties as prefect of the library was to set out the various periodicals that came each week in the recreation room. I was usually the first person at the seminary (after Bishop Williamson of course) to see the various publications. One of my greatest delights was to hide the newest issue of Fr. Sanborn's Sacerdotium (a publication he unfortunately suspended many years ago now) and head to my cell and read with avid interest the various articles contained therein. By far I liked Father Cekada's articles. His style of writing was witty and very convincing as far as his theological argumentations went. I was hooked ! It gave me even greater pleasure to see that my own spiritual director had also read some of the writings in the magazine and spoke quite highly especially of Fr. Cekada's work even though he shared a completely different theological outlook than his.

Back then I had become a convinced and confirmed sedevacantist although I had quipped to some friends (who had warned me about all the "sedes" in the Society) before I entered "If I find any "sedes" I'll leave immediately !". Fr. Cekada's writings had convinced me of this position. When Fr Kevin Robinson (a deacon when I entered Winona and ordained at the end of my first year) attempted a weak refutation of the sedevacantist thesis in one of the early issues of Sacerdotium I thought that the theory was "watertight".

During my first year one of the most intellectually brilliant men I have ever met left the seminary. It was whispered in hushed tones that he was a "sede". "So am I" I thought. At the end of the first year this fellow returned to Winona for the ordinations and he had heard from a friend of mine how disgruntled I was with the Society. (I would finally leave the Society in my fourth year). We fell to chatting, careful, of course, to avoid being overheard by the innumerable spies who would be ready to "rat" on anyone just to assure their chances of ordination. I confessed that I too was a "sede" (because I had fallen, in my "salad days" for the impetuosity of youth and become a Tradi-extremist). The former seminarian told me that he had gone to study with Fr Donald Sanborn - another of the 9 priests expelled by the Archbishop in 1983.

During the summer vacation, the same gentleman called me from Fr. Sanborn's residence in Detroit and we talked (at Fr. Sanborn's expense) for three hours on a transatlantic phone call. I was, in effect, being offered a place to study for the priesthood with Fr. Sanborn. I asked the vital question: "Who would ordain me ?" At that time none of the "naughty nine" priests (as they were facetiously called in the Society) had been consecrated bishops so the prospects of ordination were non-existent. This said, though, I was more than prepared to take the plunge but my Mother flat out refused to allow me to pursue the priesthood anywhere else than with the Society. That ended that. 

The years rolled by and now in my third year, the same gentleman, apparently converted from sedevacantism returned to Winona. Night after night I had long sessions with Bishop Williamson in his office - he trying to disprove the theory to me, I attempting to convince him of the "illogic" of the Society position. The bishop then suggested that the newly returned seminarian and I should talk the matter through and we did for three days. At the end of our theological jousting tournament I successfully re-convinced the fellow of the sedevacantist position and he left the seminary again a few days later ! (I, it should be said, stayed on for one more year).

Several years later on, and now a priest, I read that my jousting partner had re-converted again to the Society position and wrote a lengthy and very scholarly work defending the Society against Fr. Cekada. He quoted at length passages of the theologian John of St Thomas which clearly refuted the sede thesis. Not to be outdone Fr Cekada responded in a similar style to his attack upon me (almost exactly the same phraseology as a matter of fact and it is this similarity that dredged up this reminiscence).

The point of all of this so far: great minds can apparently wrestle with major theological problems, be sincere in their held beliefs and opinions, differ in their opinions, change their opinions and all the while be in good faith. My jousting partner was again one of the most brilliant intellectual types that I have ever met and he changed his mind at least three times to my knowledge as he deepened his study of the theologians. He, at least, unlike Sir Joseph Porter of the Gilbert and Sullivan fame, thought of thinking for himself !

Over the years I too, have "thought for myself" and have deepened my studies and have come to quite a different conclusion on the matter of the post-conciliar Popes than I held in the 1990s. I have always believed, even as a sedevacantist, and now not as a sedevacantist (at least since 1998) that it behooves us (since we Traditionalists are, numerically speaking, in the definite minority amongst Catholics and since we resist the will of the postconciliar Popes who want us to "get with the program") to constantly re-examine our position in case we are not, in a sense, cutting off the theological branch upon which we are sitting.

Enough of setting the stage - now to the refutation of the above. Here a digression is called for because, obviously, as a previous committed fan of Fr Cekada, to have changed my theological opinions I must have changed my assessment of his work. It actually began in 1998 or 1999. I have always been one who checks footnotes and references because reading a Council document (I think it was Sacrosanctum concilium) in the summer vacation of my second year I noticed a reference to the Council of Trent which was being cited in favor of some aberrant teaching of  Vatican II. In checking the original source I found that Trent condemned what Vatican II claimed it supported ! In similar fashion I checked a citation to Fr Dominic Prummer's work on canon law which Fr Cekada gives in support of the sede theory in his article "Traditionalists, Infallibility and the Pope". Prummer was being quoted because he stated that an heretical pope would ipso facto lose his office - as all major canonists and theologians maintain. The problem was, though, in the very next sentence in the Latin original, Prummer, who had discussed the possibility of an heretical pope losing his office, went on to deny the probability of a pope falling into error in the first place. Why this startling omission on Fr Cekada's part ? It is interesting to note that, in his attack on me above, he accuses me of "intellectual dishonesty" - could we say the same in reply ?

By this time I was wondering (1998) about the tenability of the sede theory. (In response to one objector who thinks that I may not have held the sede theory at Mount St Michael and my stint with CMRI - I left them in 1996 and abandoned sedevacantism in 1998). My doubts about the sede thesis were further fueled by my reading of the Denzinger one day:

[Canon]. If anyone then says that it is not from the institution of Christ the Lord Himself, or by divine right that the blessed Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the universal Church, or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in the same primacy, let him be anathema. [Denz 1825] 

It seemed to me that if Vatican I infallibly proclaimed that there would be a perpetual succession until the end of time then where had the Pope been since 1958? Either these men were popes or Vatican I erred in an infallible pronouncement. I certainly had my doubts. I thought of calling Fr Cekada to discuss with the "old master" my concerns. Strange as Providence would have it, a layman had relayed the same quotation to him. Fr. Cekada forwarded his response to this legitimate question to his theology e-mail list. His response: "That's ridiculous !" That was all he said - absolutely nothing else. I was stunned. If serious theological speculation were wanted this wasn't it. To his text at long last:

By puffing this passage as a "refutation" of the principle that the Church is infallible when promulgating universal disciplinary laws, Fr. Fulham is either suffering from a bad proof-texting hangover from his Billy Graham days, or just being duplicitous in hopes of fooling the theologically ignorant.

I think it's the latter, because:

1. "Err" here plainly means nothing more than to be mistaken or to make a bad practical judgment.

2. Only a complete theological moron would claim that a passage in a book of pop sermon illustrations somehow "trumps" the teaching of major treatises on Catholic dogma written by the academic theologians I quoted (Van Noort, Hermann, Dorsch, Schultes, Zubizarreta, Iragui, Salaverri and others).

3. Sixteen pages earlier in the same book, Fr. Callan uses a quote that supports the infallibility of the Church in her universal disciplinary laws:

"Now, as to the subject matter of ecclesiastical legislation, and the extent to which it can go in prescribing of prohibiting -- all this is to be determined by the Church herself, who is the supreme judge of all such questions, since to her alone has been committed the charge of the entire flock. In saying so much we must guard ourselves against a misapprehension. We do not mean that the Church can make laws and impose duties arbitrarily, as though it rested with her to fix for herself what she fancies, but in the sense that she is Divinely invested with supreme authority from above, both in deciding questions regarding her own power, and in framing and promulgating laws under the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, who has promised to abide with her for ever, and to defend her from all error.-- Bishop John S. Vaughn." Callan, Illustrations, 131.

4. And Fr. Callan himself, in any case, warns the reader that his treatment of subjects in his book is incomplete, limited and fragmentary:

"In submitting to the public the present collection of Illustrations for Sermons and Instructions, the editor wishes respectfully to call the attention of its readers to the fact that it does not in any sense pretend to be complete. Both as to the number of the subjects touched upon, and the manner of treating these subjects, the editor is, therefore, fully aware that this compilation cannot be considered other than limited and fragmentary" Editor's Preface, iii.

Fr. Fulham, then, has distorted the quote on just about every level possible -- plain meaning, authority of work cited, meaning from context, and author's intention. It's a quadruple-header for intellectual dishonesty.

I am going to use a print-out of the page from his site in the part of my canon law course this fall when I teach the seminarians about methods for researching and writing about issues in theology and canon law.

It's Exhibit A for the dishonest and low level of traditionalist "theological" polemic they'll face.

+TF

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