So I see Meg has derailed yet another thread.  Why do you all continue to respond to her?  I respond to her if she has substantive things to say, but if it's her usual anti-sede/anti-Matthew tirades, I just ignore her. 

She is to sedevacantist-related threads what Dankward or Marion are to FE-related threads. They come out of the woodwork and start deriding everyone else in order to derail it. Ignore and move on.

Meg is right... sede-vacantism is wrong.  The Seat IS occupied.

We have a Jєω anti-pope who is occupying the Seat.

 Isn't the seat empty because Pope Michael just died?  

I can't believe how so many Catholics still are so naive  about these "converted" media Jєωs.

I've been duped a million times, and I presume that my mind is always full of unperceived illusions. We live in a pigsty. Hard not to get soiled.

To: DL

Thanks for your clarifications! Most helpful!

Now that the See is empty again, perhaps we should hold a conclave here on CathInfo ... and elect our own CI Pope.

Do you mean a CI member for fun or actual clerics?  And maybe, if for fun, we can just make it about who would make a good pope rather than make fun of "Pope" Michael after his death...

Interestingly I recently purchased the Ryan Grant translation of St. Alphonsus' Moral Theology. I'm in the first section which is on conscience, and I found the translation awkward, so that I could not comprehend the definition given for vincible ignorance; and there were other sentences hard to wrest.

Now I'm no stranger to St. Thomas and to St. Alphonsus, both of whom I find eminently intelligible.

This strange wordstringing has given me pause. Now I think I might know the problem. I did not before know Grant's background.

I'm certainly ticked that I wasted my money on something I now cannot trust. Happily it was the kindle edition, so I'm only out a ten spot. 

Grant certainly does have a face. Thanks, Incred, for alerting us to the facts of lineage regarding these media cucks.

I have his translations of De Controversiis, Doctrina Christiana, etc.

It's terrible. There's loads of typos, even in the Contents page.

Here's what some guy wrote on Amazon for De Romano Pontifice:

This book is a piece of Counter-Reformation apologetic/polemic on the Papacy. Robert Bellarmine uses 4 types of evidence - The Bible, Church Fathers, Medieval authors (including Byzantine authors) and contemporary authors (mainly Protestant). Bellermine argues a range of topics from straightforward ones like 'Was Peter ever in Rome?' (which was denied by John Calvin) to the monarchy of the pontiff to the question on the identify of the Antichrist (many Protestants had claimed that title for the popes).

The breadth of Robert Bellarmine scholarship is astounding. I am impressed by the level of his scholarship. He shows himself a much more competent historian than his Protestant opponents. He quotes or refers to hundreds of texts and dozens of authors. Most are quoted accurately and mostly authentic works are used. The odd one out is the synopsis of Dorotheus of Tyre (pages 174,176,185). that is attributed to a 4th century saint but is actually a middle Byzantine forgery. Curiously, Bellarmine seems to recognise a problem with it (page 176) but keeps on using it anyway (page 185). This book gave me a good idea of what Bellarmine opponents were saying (he often quotes them) but it did make me curious to read them. Unfortunately, none of them have been translated into English.

I find myself agreeing with much of what Bellarmine is saying. Being neither Protestant or Roman Catholic I can let the arguments stand for themselves without being clouded by emotion. Clearly the place of the Papacy was a very thorny issue for both sides. Probably Bellarmine's greatest fault is projecting a Medieval Papacy onto the evidence of the earlier period. I found Bellarmine's use of Nilus Kabasilas to be much more extensive than I had presumed. He quotes or refers to him about 20 times. As the Orthodox approach the Papacy quite differently from Protestantism I wondered why Bellarmine felt the need to include Nilus. Perhaps Nilus' treatise on the Popes was circulating in Protestant circles.

There book has a number of problems. One is the massive number of authors used by Bellarmine makes it difficult to figure out who is who. On page 217 Ryan Grant has a note that explains that Theodore Balsamon is an important Byzantine canonist. That is great but he doesn't do it for most of the other authors. Don't get me wrong, there is no need to explain who Jerome, Epiphanius or John Chrysostom are but there are plenty of others who need an introduction. Bellarmine refers to a 'Nicephorus' on multiple occasions (for example pages 134,142,193,265). I presumed he meant Patriarch Nicephorus (or Nikephoros) of Constantinople from the early ninth century but further reading made me realise that Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos from the 14th century is actually meant. Similarly the mention of a 'Euthymius' (pages 72, 134,147,154) left me puzzled as it is a fairly common Orthodox monastic name. As the quotes come from New Testament/Gospel commentaries I realised it must be Euthymios Zigabenos from the 12th century. I am unsure how many readers realise that Zonaras (page 257) or Cedrenus (pages 370,372) are Byzantine chroniclers or that Evagrius (page 219) is actually Evagrius Scholasticus, a 6th century church historian.

As I am knowledgeable in Byzantine history I was able to identity the individuals but I had no idea who some of Bellarmine's contemporaries were. Luther, Calvin and Bullinger are well known but Matthias Flacius, David Chytraeus and Theodore Bibliander were completely new to me. To find their confessional allegiances I had to look them up. There are lots of references to the 'Centuriators' (page 83 for an early example) or the 'Centuriators of Magdeburg' (page 394) as one of Bellarmine's main targets. These were a Lutheran historical work from 1559 to 1574 in thirteen volumes (each volume containing a century up to 1300). I wish this had been made clear to me what it was at the start. What this book needed was a brief appendix of names and works cited to ease the confusion.

I found a few mistakes but nothing serious. On page 297 it reads 'Accordingly Gortynae the bishop of Crete, held the place of Roman Pontiff, as can be seen by the history of Basil' (page 297). The next page refers to 'Bishop Gortyae'. There is clearly some confusion as Gortyna was the capital of Crete (and seat of the primate of the island) and not a person.

Time for nit-picking – Names
There are a lot of names that are not recognisable due to the strange was they have been translated. For example, the Council of Serdica (343 AD) is called ‘Sardica’ and ‘Sardia’ on the same page (page 286). Titus became bishop of Crete but he is called ‘Titus Cretensis’ so it is difficult to see that Crete is actually meant. Gennadius Scholarius is correctly called that (pages 324,233) but at the start of the book he is called ‘Gennadius Scholarium’. Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople is called ‘Anatholus’ and Arethas is called ‘Aerthas’ (page 373) and ‘Aretha’ (page 390) despite his name being correctly translated on other pages (for example 358,436,439). The early Gnostic Cerinthus is called ‘Cherinthus’ (page 454) and the infamous Monothelite Macarius of Antioch is called ‘Macharius the Monothilite’ (page 481). Rufinus of Aquileia (also known as Tyrannius Rufinus or just Rufinus) is referred to as ‘Ruffinus’ throughout the book (pages 154,222,292,432,482), which is confusing as I have never seen his name written that way. The notorious Monophysite Peter Mongus is called ‘Peter Gnaphaeus’ (page 481), which I presume is Latin for ‘hoarse’ (the meaning of his Greek nickname). Then there is ‘Felix Nolan’ (page 434) instead of the usual Felix of Nola. Felix Nolan reminds me of a guy who works in a supermarket. The second century Church Father Hegesippus is called ‘Egesippus’ (page 137) and the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenos is called 'Emmanuel' (page 147).Then there is mention of Justinian deposing a pope named 'Sylverius' (page 306) when the usual rendering of his name in English is Silverius.

More nit-picking – typos
I have to admit I’m not the best at proofreading but there a number of typos. There is ‘Dionisius’ instead of Dionysius on page 217 and synopsis is spelt incorrectly on page 176. A number of names have different spelling within close proximity. For example, the Gallic poet Sedulius is called ‘Sedulus’ on page 390 but a few pages later it is spelt correctly (page 396).

I mean, his translation is trash but is there anything intentionally misleading? I haven't read the books yet but I skimmed through the heretical pope part of De Romano Pontifice and it's 100% sede so it seems he didn't touch anything.

I mean, his translation is trash but is there anything intentionally misleading? I haven't read the books yet but I skimmed through the heretical pope part of De Romano Pontifice and it's 100% sede so it seems he didn't touch anything.

I honestly think it's amateurish incompetence and laziness. Like I, and Simeon, said about his translation of Moral Theology: there's a lot of sections in that book which are difficult to understand because of the translation. St. Alphonsus is a very clear writer, which is reflected in his books translated by others, but this book falters because Grant simply doesn't appear to be a good Latinist. Sure, he does a great service translating these books that would otherwise be left untranslated, but that doesn't excuse the sloppiness and confusing nature of some of them.

I question if there's also a factor of it being an independent publisher problem, as many independent works and translations don't utilize editors to catch these things. I noticed this with E. Michael Jones's book Logos Rising, where he basically abuses certain sources to the point where entire sections are basically paraphrasing other works, something that I remember being a big no-no in my college history courses.