Question on the "Grain of Incense" Article
Dec 20, 2022 10:59:21 GMT -5
Clotilde, Caillin, and 1 more like this
Post by Pacelli on Dec 20, 2022 10:59:21 GMT -5
Someone has written me with the following questions about Fr. Cekada's article, "The Grain of Incense" which I post below along with my response to this person. I post it here, omitting all personal details of the email, as if this person is having these questions, I am sure others are as well.
I just had a few questions on Fr. Cekada's Grain of Incense article. www.traditionalmass.org/images/articles/SedesUnCum.pdf
On pages 6 and 7, he has a few quotes that concern me.
Maurice de la Taille SJ (1920): “The Congregation Who Assist at Mass, as Offerers.... Those who assist exert, in a greater degree than those who are not present, their native power to offer as members of the ecclesiastical body, in so far as they are more in- timately united with the sacrifice by this outwardexpression of actual devotion. By their presence they indicate that they ratify, as far as in them lies, the offering which is made in their name, and hence by a special title they make it their own and offer it.”22
Pope Pius XII (1947): “The people unite their hearts in praise, impetration, expiation and thanksgiving with the prayers or intention of the priest, even of the High Priest himself, so that in the one and the same offering of the victim and according to a visi- ble sacerdotal rite, they may be presented to God the Father.”24
St. John Chrysostom: “The prayer wherein thanks- giving is made [the Canon] is common to both [that is, the priest and the people], it is not the priesalone, but the whole of the people who give thanks to God. For it is only when he [the priest] has taken up their words, by which they have agreed that it is meetly and justly done, that he begins the action of thanksgiving or Eucharist.”26
• St. Augustine: “When you have heard the priest say: Lift up your hearts you reply We have lifted them up to the Lord. Take pains to answer truthfully, be- cause you are answering in the presence of the ac- tion of God. Let it be so, as you say it is; do not al- low your tongue to give utterance to what your heart knows is not true.... To say Amen is to sub- scribe to the truth. In Latin Amen means It is true.”27
• St. Remigius of Auxerre: “The Amen, which is an- swered by the whole church, means it is true. The faithful therefore give this reply to this great mys- tery, as they do in all legitimate prayer, and they as it were subscribe to its truth by so replying.”28
The explanation I've heard is that laymen agree with the priest's offering as a human act, and since the priest's act is good, there's no problem. But don't laymen say Amen (via the servers) to the Canon as a whole? How could we do that if Francis is named as pope in it? Also, the sacrifice is being offered for the man named as pope, so I'm having trouble seeing how we aren't associated with the naming of Francis.
On page 10, Fr. Cekada brings up this quote:
... There is hardly any rite among the heterodox that is not stained with some error in faith... espe- cially where a commemoration is made of living Patriarchs and Bishops — schismatics and heretics — who are proclaimed preachers of the Catholic faith. For this reason, any Catholics who come to- gether under circumstances like this to celebrate a rite of prayer and worship cannot excuse them- selves from the sin of evil common worship, or at least, from the sin of pernicious scandal.52
A response I've heard is that Francis is an undeclared heretic, but on page 15, Fr. Cekada says the documents don't distinguish between declared and undeclared heretics.
My response to the email with a few small modifications to make it more clear on certain points:
I just had a few questions on Fr. Cekada's Grain of Incense article. www.traditionalmass.org/images/articles/SedesUnCum.pdf
On pages 6 and 7, he has a few quotes that concern me.
Maurice de la Taille SJ (1920): “The Congregation Who Assist at Mass, as Offerers.... Those who assist exert, in a greater degree than those who are not present, their native power to offer as members of the ecclesiastical body, in so far as they are more in- timately united with the sacrifice by this outwardexpression of actual devotion. By their presence they indicate that they ratify, as far as in them lies, the offering which is made in their name, and hence by a special title they make it their own and offer it.”22
Pope Pius XII (1947): “The people unite their hearts in praise, impetration, expiation and thanksgiving with the prayers or intention of the priest, even of the High Priest himself, so that in the one and the same offering of the victim and according to a visi- ble sacerdotal rite, they may be presented to God the Father.”24
St. John Chrysostom: “The prayer wherein thanks- giving is made [the Canon] is common to both [that is, the priest and the people], it is not the priesalone, but the whole of the people who give thanks to God. For it is only when he [the priest] has taken up their words, by which they have agreed that it is meetly and justly done, that he begins the action of thanksgiving or Eucharist.”26
• St. Augustine: “When you have heard the priest say: Lift up your hearts you reply We have lifted them up to the Lord. Take pains to answer truthfully, be- cause you are answering in the presence of the ac- tion of God. Let it be so, as you say it is; do not al- low your tongue to give utterance to what your heart knows is not true.... To say Amen is to sub- scribe to the truth. In Latin Amen means It is true.”27
• St. Remigius of Auxerre: “The Amen, which is an- swered by the whole church, means it is true. The faithful therefore give this reply to this great mys- tery, as they do in all legitimate prayer, and they as it were subscribe to its truth by so replying.”28
The explanation I've heard is that laymen agree with the priest's offering as a human act, and since the priest's act is good, there's no problem. But don't laymen say Amen (via the servers) to the Canon as a whole? How could we do that if Francis is named as pope in it? Also, the sacrifice is being offered for the man named as pope, so I'm having trouble seeing how we aren't associated with the naming of Francis.
On page 10, Fr. Cekada brings up this quote:
... There is hardly any rite among the heterodox that is not stained with some error in faith... espe- cially where a commemoration is made of living Patriarchs and Bishops — schismatics and heretics — who are proclaimed preachers of the Catholic faith. For this reason, any Catholics who come to- gether under circumstances like this to celebrate a rite of prayer and worship cannot excuse them- selves from the sin of evil common worship, or at least, from the sin of pernicious scandal.52
A response I've heard is that Francis is an undeclared heretic, but on page 15, Fr. Cekada says the documents don't distinguish between declared and undeclared heretics.
My response to the email with a few small modifications to make it more clear on certain points:
I am happy you are thinking about this. I was actually beginning to tackle this article from Fr. Cekada as someone has written me about it a while back and in his correspondence told me that this error is spreading, it’s not going away, and needs to be more sufficiently addressed.
Anyway, while I was starting on this huge task, my attention got diverted to another raging fire, so to speak, with new ideas being promoted by sedevacantist groups and apparently are also spreading. The two unorthodox ideas being promoted are the denial that there must be living successors of the Apostles in the world, and this error has been around since at least 2012, and therefore the Apostolic Succession can be interrupted, and secondly, some are saying that the succesors of the Apostles can be one who is episcopally consecrated, who is not a ruling territorial bishop, and who makes the claim to the Apostolic succession despite not meeting the definition always used in the Church. In my opinion, I believe both of these positions to have the theological note of heresy.
So, I have been focusing on those, as the NUC matter is an error, and heresy is a more grave danger to Catholics. If you go to TradCath, sedevacantist and crisis sub forums, you can see the more recent threads dealing with these issues.
Anyway, to your questions:
1. These quotes (cited by you from page 6 & 7) are all standard understandings of this matter, so there is no controversy here. The issue is with the construct made for you by Fr. Cekada in how you are to apply these quotes. Interestingly enough, this is the same simplistic method used by the Feeneyites in the use of quotes to support their narrative, not to understand what the Church actually teaches. Like the Feeneyites, the argument looks impressive at first sight, and it is only when the Catholic principles of theology are carefully used that the once apparently strong argument begins to fall apart.
2. As a rule, everything in these quotes is true, and there is no issue. What is not being explained by Fr. Cekada is the real issue, and this is that there are exceptions to the general rule. What if a priest makes a mistake that you are aware of? Does the Church bind you by law to avoid that mass said by him? If so, what law? Fr. Cekada certainly doesn’t cite it.
Let me illustrate: You are a traveler living in the middle ages prior to the fast communications of today, and in your travels you stop in Rome and are informed that the Pope has died. Prior to leaving Rome, a new Pope is elected. You continue your travels and everywhere you go, the dead pope is being named in the mass. A few times you approach different priests to inform them of this, and they thank you for the news, but tell you that until they are notified officially of this fact, they will keep praying for the pope who you claimed is dead. Are you permitted to keep attending masses by these priests? Are you witnessing to a lie? Is this inconsistent, since you personally know that the man being prayed for as pope, is not pope, as he is dead and another pope is now ruling the Church?
The entire construct made by Fr. Cekada in his article is very clever as it leads the reader down a certain path of thought that appears to be an irrefutable argument, just like the Feeneyites, but once one challenges the underlying foundational assumptions it is built on, the entire thing collapses.
Anyway, the answer to the questions above should be obvious. The Church has never bound a Catholic to avoid masses in which there is a mistake as to a fact made by the priest. The priest says the mass based on incorrect data, as he lacks any official news of the old pope’s passing, and even though you know the truth, you are not bound to act on this apparent inconsistency. The priest errs on a matter that is not a settled fact.
The same principle applies to our current dilemma. The priests in question have not received any official notification from their diocesan bishops that the current claimant to the papacy is not the pope. It further complicates matters since the “bishops” in question, are, at least in the Latin rite, most likely not office-holders either, but as far as the principles of the matter goes, that is besides the point. The point is that there is a disagreement over a disputed fact, and the Church hasn't settled it.
If anything, the stronger argument of the mind of the Church in this matter is in favor of the priests continuing to use the name of the post-V2 papal claimant until the matter is settled by the Church, since all of the remaining hierarchy, the successors of the Apostles, continue to at least nominally accept these claims and have never denounced these men, and triggered the calling of an imperfect council to make that a public fact and call for an election.
The Fourth Council of Constantinople, which by the way is the only precedent we have as to how to handle such a case according to the law taught:
Every remaining successor of the Apostles and all canonically assigned priests remaining in the world that I am aware of, even those who question and have issues with Francis, continues to at least name him in the the Divine Mysteries (Mass) and also the office. Francis has not yet been judged by the Church.
Now, according to Fr. Cekada’s interpretation of the teachings quoted above, how would this reconcile with the fact that the Church could not give us an evil law? If you were living at the time of this Council, and therefore bound by this law, and you know that your bishop is a heretic, but this hasn’t been settled by the Church yet, and he at least by all appearances remains in his office, then the Church would be binding you to sin every time you go to mass, as the priest is naming him as bishop, but you are morally certain he is not. But, we all know that the Church cannot give an evil law, ergo...
The only way to make sense of this is to understand what Fr. Cekada has omitted from his paper. He neglected to tell his readers that there are conditions to this teaching on our uniting to the priest in the mass. In general it’s true, you always unite to the priest in his praying of the official prayers of the rite, and also unite with his intentions, but that presupposes that there are no mistakes made.
Theology is always taught with certain presuppositions, and it amazes me that this was all ignored in this paper. To try to understand what I mean, let me give you an example on a different issue: Pope Pius XII taught that the time and fact of death of a person would be determined by the judgment of a doctor. Obviously, the presupposition here is that the doctor is ethical and is not twisting the meaning of death to suit his own purposes or further some evil end. So, in our times, the doctor, using the "brain dead" criteria of someone in a coma to pronounce death, and therefore allow the dead person's beating heart to be removed, as is often done, is clearly not being ethical, and even though Pope Pius XII taught that death is for doctors to determine, the presupposition would be that ethical doctors would do this, not corrupt and perverse doctors. The Pope didn't have to say this explicitly, as it was an a obvious presupposition, left unsaid by the Pope, but clearly his intent. People with untrained minds could easily use this same simplistic method, quote Pope Pius XII, and defend "brain death" to mean death as determined by the doctor, and then proceed to justify the removal of a beating heart from a living person. It's twisted, but that's how this theological method works.
In our case, these writers cited above, were clearly presupposing the condition that the laity present at mass were in agreement with the priests prayers and intentions, unless there was a mistake, and that mistake could mean the priest uses an incorrect word or incorrectly changes a prayer by reading it wrong, prays for an intention that is in his judgment good, but in actuality is evil, such as success in an unjust war, that the priest mistakenly believes is just, or lastly prays for a “bishop” or “pope” that in actuality has lost his office either through death, or for the crime of heresy that has not been judged by the Church.
When, for example in older rites of the Church, the name of a king or an emperor was used in the mass, what if you believed he was not a true king or emperor and he was a usurper? Would your belief mean that you would be publicly accepting the emperor or the kings claim by your mass attendance, as the false king or emperor is named in the rite, and you must cease believing or doing anything within your power to correct this usurpation, all because you believed in the same principles of Fr. Cekada and Bishop Sanborn that you cannot be inconsistent according to their application of that term in this matter? But, once you sift through the fallacious reasoning, you could also see it that the priest incorrectly believes in the king or emperor’s claim based on either incorrect facts or by applying principles incorrectly, and he is by that making a mistake by naming the usurper, and therefore there is no inconsistency by naming the false ruler, and your attendance at the mass is not based on inconsistency and is certainly not publicly cooperating in a lie. If you went to mass where the usurper king is named, would you be witnessing to a pernicious lie, as explained in the "Grain of Incense," and by that have to stay home unless you found a priest omitting the name of the usurper king? The principles used by Fr. Cekada are not only incorrect, they lead to absurdity once they are followed to their logical ends. As said before, what law of the Catholic Church binds you to avoid a mass where a mistake is made by the priest?
The right of a Catholic to go to mass is not impeded by mistakes made by a priest in the rite or in judgment of facts. The Catholic Church has never bound you to the interpretation of these quotes by these men (Cekada & Sanborn) either. The Fourth Council of Constantinople did not say, “if you privately determined the guilt and crime of the patriarch, you must remove his name from the Divine Mysteries and offices, prior to his judgment by the Church.” It said the opposite! I know this law is no longer in effect in the 1917 Code, but we can learn the mind of the Church in this matter: while we can certainly identify a heretical bishop (or pope), protect ourselves from him, and warn others about him, it seems that we cannot go to the next step and make our private judgment into a legal judgment and then proceed to remove his name from the mass or offices.
It’s an interesting thing on how the spirit of this canon would apply in our situation, as we are now living in a long term state of having heretical papal claimants rule over both heretics and Catholics, along with many diocesan bishops who are either heretics, or who for whatever reason will not speak out against these modern heresies and errors.
I think an argument can be made that what we are witnessing goes far beyond what the fathers of Constantinople IV envisioned, but the point is that this is a matter of dispute, and hardly settled. If, say an eastern rite cleric says, “I see all the points being made about Francis, but until my I am notified of the fact that he is not a Catholic and by that not the Pope by my bishop, I will continue to use his name in my Divine Liturgy and other prayers where his name is mentioned. I choose to await for a legal judgment based on the legal precedent set by Constantinople IV. “ I cannot see any argument against this, and I do not see why the SSPX, even though they “submit” to mostly heretical or liberal Latin Rite bishops (who most likely aren't office-holders anyway) cannot also follow this line of reasoning. Bp. Sanborn and Fr. Cekada have no legal precedent to base their opinion on, unlike the SSPX and Eastern Rites, who by the way do both have quiet sedevacantists in their ranks.
Anyway, I know this was a much longer answer than I originally intended, so I will sum everything up with one quick summary: Fr. Cekada’s quotes are good, there is no issue with them, but it is his use of the quotes that is wrong, as he leads his readers to an incorrect conclusion that the quotes do not lead one to, as he leaves out critical presuppositions that anyone with any degree of training in theology would have been aware of. He, like the Feeneyites, who he combatted by the way, uses the same tactics used by their writers, by using quotes in a manner that forces the reader to an incorrect conclusion as key understandings of the matter that should go along with the quotes are omitted from the writing. This is why years ago, and even today, this paper is called “junk theology.”
Anyway, while I was starting on this huge task, my attention got diverted to another raging fire, so to speak, with new ideas being promoted by sedevacantist groups and apparently are also spreading. The two unorthodox ideas being promoted are the denial that there must be living successors of the Apostles in the world, and this error has been around since at least 2012, and therefore the Apostolic Succession can be interrupted, and secondly, some are saying that the succesors of the Apostles can be one who is episcopally consecrated, who is not a ruling territorial bishop, and who makes the claim to the Apostolic succession despite not meeting the definition always used in the Church. In my opinion, I believe both of these positions to have the theological note of heresy.
So, I have been focusing on those, as the NUC matter is an error, and heresy is a more grave danger to Catholics. If you go to TradCath, sedevacantist and crisis sub forums, you can see the more recent threads dealing with these issues.
Anyway, to your questions:
1. These quotes (cited by you from page 6 & 7) are all standard understandings of this matter, so there is no controversy here. The issue is with the construct made for you by Fr. Cekada in how you are to apply these quotes. Interestingly enough, this is the same simplistic method used by the Feeneyites in the use of quotes to support their narrative, not to understand what the Church actually teaches. Like the Feeneyites, the argument looks impressive at first sight, and it is only when the Catholic principles of theology are carefully used that the once apparently strong argument begins to fall apart.
2. As a rule, everything in these quotes is true, and there is no issue. What is not being explained by Fr. Cekada is the real issue, and this is that there are exceptions to the general rule. What if a priest makes a mistake that you are aware of? Does the Church bind you by law to avoid that mass said by him? If so, what law? Fr. Cekada certainly doesn’t cite it.
Let me illustrate: You are a traveler living in the middle ages prior to the fast communications of today, and in your travels you stop in Rome and are informed that the Pope has died. Prior to leaving Rome, a new Pope is elected. You continue your travels and everywhere you go, the dead pope is being named in the mass. A few times you approach different priests to inform them of this, and they thank you for the news, but tell you that until they are notified officially of this fact, they will keep praying for the pope who you claimed is dead. Are you permitted to keep attending masses by these priests? Are you witnessing to a lie? Is this inconsistent, since you personally know that the man being prayed for as pope, is not pope, as he is dead and another pope is now ruling the Church?
The entire construct made by Fr. Cekada in his article is very clever as it leads the reader down a certain path of thought that appears to be an irrefutable argument, just like the Feeneyites, but once one challenges the underlying foundational assumptions it is built on, the entire thing collapses.
Anyway, the answer to the questions above should be obvious. The Church has never bound a Catholic to avoid masses in which there is a mistake as to a fact made by the priest. The priest says the mass based on incorrect data, as he lacks any official news of the old pope’s passing, and even though you know the truth, you are not bound to act on this apparent inconsistency. The priest errs on a matter that is not a settled fact.
The same principle applies to our current dilemma. The priests in question have not received any official notification from their diocesan bishops that the current claimant to the papacy is not the pope. It further complicates matters since the “bishops” in question, are, at least in the Latin rite, most likely not office-holders either, but as far as the principles of the matter goes, that is besides the point. The point is that there is a disagreement over a disputed fact, and the Church hasn't settled it.
If anything, the stronger argument of the mind of the Church in this matter is in favor of the priests continuing to use the name of the post-V2 papal claimant until the matter is settled by the Church, since all of the remaining hierarchy, the successors of the Apostles, continue to at least nominally accept these claims and have never denounced these men, and triggered the calling of an imperfect council to make that a public fact and call for an election.
The Fourth Council of Constantinople, which by the way is the only precedent we have as to how to handle such a case according to the law taught:
Canon 10: 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 until he is converted by repentance and reconciled.” (Emphasis added)
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 until he is converted by repentance and reconciled.” (Emphasis added)
Every remaining successor of the Apostles and all canonically assigned priests remaining in the world that I am aware of, even those who question and have issues with Francis, continues to at least name him in the the Divine Mysteries (Mass) and also the office. Francis has not yet been judged by the Church.
Now, according to Fr. Cekada’s interpretation of the teachings quoted above, how would this reconcile with the fact that the Church could not give us an evil law? If you were living at the time of this Council, and therefore bound by this law, and you know that your bishop is a heretic, but this hasn’t been settled by the Church yet, and he at least by all appearances remains in his office, then the Church would be binding you to sin every time you go to mass, as the priest is naming him as bishop, but you are morally certain he is not. But, we all know that the Church cannot give an evil law, ergo...
The only way to make sense of this is to understand what Fr. Cekada has omitted from his paper. He neglected to tell his readers that there are conditions to this teaching on our uniting to the priest in the mass. In general it’s true, you always unite to the priest in his praying of the official prayers of the rite, and also unite with his intentions, but that presupposes that there are no mistakes made.
Theology is always taught with certain presuppositions, and it amazes me that this was all ignored in this paper. To try to understand what I mean, let me give you an example on a different issue: Pope Pius XII taught that the time and fact of death of a person would be determined by the judgment of a doctor. Obviously, the presupposition here is that the doctor is ethical and is not twisting the meaning of death to suit his own purposes or further some evil end. So, in our times, the doctor, using the "brain dead" criteria of someone in a coma to pronounce death, and therefore allow the dead person's beating heart to be removed, as is often done, is clearly not being ethical, and even though Pope Pius XII taught that death is for doctors to determine, the presupposition would be that ethical doctors would do this, not corrupt and perverse doctors. The Pope didn't have to say this explicitly, as it was an a obvious presupposition, left unsaid by the Pope, but clearly his intent. People with untrained minds could easily use this same simplistic method, quote Pope Pius XII, and defend "brain death" to mean death as determined by the doctor, and then proceed to justify the removal of a beating heart from a living person. It's twisted, but that's how this theological method works.
In our case, these writers cited above, were clearly presupposing the condition that the laity present at mass were in agreement with the priests prayers and intentions, unless there was a mistake, and that mistake could mean the priest uses an incorrect word or incorrectly changes a prayer by reading it wrong, prays for an intention that is in his judgment good, but in actuality is evil, such as success in an unjust war, that the priest mistakenly believes is just, or lastly prays for a “bishop” or “pope” that in actuality has lost his office either through death, or for the crime of heresy that has not been judged by the Church.
When, for example in older rites of the Church, the name of a king or an emperor was used in the mass, what if you believed he was not a true king or emperor and he was a usurper? Would your belief mean that you would be publicly accepting the emperor or the kings claim by your mass attendance, as the false king or emperor is named in the rite, and you must cease believing or doing anything within your power to correct this usurpation, all because you believed in the same principles of Fr. Cekada and Bishop Sanborn that you cannot be inconsistent according to their application of that term in this matter? But, once you sift through the fallacious reasoning, you could also see it that the priest incorrectly believes in the king or emperor’s claim based on either incorrect facts or by applying principles incorrectly, and he is by that making a mistake by naming the usurper, and therefore there is no inconsistency by naming the false ruler, and your attendance at the mass is not based on inconsistency and is certainly not publicly cooperating in a lie. If you went to mass where the usurper king is named, would you be witnessing to a pernicious lie, as explained in the "Grain of Incense," and by that have to stay home unless you found a priest omitting the name of the usurper king? The principles used by Fr. Cekada are not only incorrect, they lead to absurdity once they are followed to their logical ends. As said before, what law of the Catholic Church binds you to avoid a mass where a mistake is made by the priest?
The right of a Catholic to go to mass is not impeded by mistakes made by a priest in the rite or in judgment of facts. The Catholic Church has never bound you to the interpretation of these quotes by these men (Cekada & Sanborn) either. The Fourth Council of Constantinople did not say, “if you privately determined the guilt and crime of the patriarch, you must remove his name from the Divine Mysteries and offices, prior to his judgment by the Church.” It said the opposite! I know this law is no longer in effect in the 1917 Code, but we can learn the mind of the Church in this matter: while we can certainly identify a heretical bishop (or pope), protect ourselves from him, and warn others about him, it seems that we cannot go to the next step and make our private judgment into a legal judgment and then proceed to remove his name from the mass or offices.
It’s an interesting thing on how the spirit of this canon would apply in our situation, as we are now living in a long term state of having heretical papal claimants rule over both heretics and Catholics, along with many diocesan bishops who are either heretics, or who for whatever reason will not speak out against these modern heresies and errors.
I think an argument can be made that what we are witnessing goes far beyond what the fathers of Constantinople IV envisioned, but the point is that this is a matter of dispute, and hardly settled. If, say an eastern rite cleric says, “I see all the points being made about Francis, but until my I am notified of the fact that he is not a Catholic and by that not the Pope by my bishop, I will continue to use his name in my Divine Liturgy and other prayers where his name is mentioned. I choose to await for a legal judgment based on the legal precedent set by Constantinople IV. “ I cannot see any argument against this, and I do not see why the SSPX, even though they “submit” to mostly heretical or liberal Latin Rite bishops (who most likely aren't office-holders anyway) cannot also follow this line of reasoning. Bp. Sanborn and Fr. Cekada have no legal precedent to base their opinion on, unlike the SSPX and Eastern Rites, who by the way do both have quiet sedevacantists in their ranks.
Anyway, I know this was a much longer answer than I originally intended, so I will sum everything up with one quick summary: Fr. Cekada’s quotes are good, there is no issue with them, but it is his use of the quotes that is wrong, as he leads his readers to an incorrect conclusion that the quotes do not lead one to, as he leaves out critical presuppositions that anyone with any degree of training in theology would have been aware of. He, like the Feeneyites, who he combatted by the way, uses the same tactics used by their writers, by using quotes in a manner that forces the reader to an incorrect conclusion as key understandings of the matter that should go along with the quotes are omitted from the writing. This is why years ago, and even today, this paper is called “junk theology.”