Robert Bellarmine University of Padua.[2] 2 Career Bellarmine’s systematic study of theology began at Padua in 1567 and 1568, where his teachers were adherents of Thomism. In 1569 he was sent to finish it at the University of Leuven in Flanders. There he was ordained, and ob- tained a reputation both as a professor and a preacher. He was the first Jesuit to teach at the university, where the subject of his course was the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. His residence in Leuven lasted seven years. In poor health, in 1576 he made a journey to Italy. Here he remained, commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII to lecture on polemical theology in the new Roman Col- lege, now known as the Pontifical Gregorian University. Bellarmine’s coat of arms Later, he would promote the cause of the beatification of Aloysius Gonzaga, who had been a student at the college during Bellarmine’s tenure.[1] Saint Robert Bellarmine, S.J. (Italian: Roberto France- sco Romolo Bellarmino; 4 October 1542 – 17 September 1621) was an Italian Jesuit and a Cardinal of the Catholic 2.1 New duties after 1589 Church. He was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation. Until 1589, Bellarmine was occupied as professor of the- He was a professor of theology and later rector of the ology. After the murder in that year of Henry III of Roman College, and in 1602 became archbishop of Ca- France, Pope Sixtus V sent Enrico Caetani as legate to pua. Bellarmine supported the reform decrees of the Paris[3] to negotiate with the Catholic League of France, Council of Trent. and chose Bellarmine to accompany him as theologian.[4] He was in the city during its siege by Henry of Navarre. He was canonized in 1930 and named a Doctor of the Church. Bellarmine is also widely remembered for his The next pope, Clement VIII, said of him, “the Church role in the Giordano Bruno affair and the Galileo affair. of God had not his equal in learning”.[1] Bellarmine was made rector of the Roman College in 1592, examiner of bishops in 1598, and cardinal in 1599. Immediately after his appointment as Cardinal, Pope Clement made him a 1 Early life Cardinal Inquisitor, in which capacity he served as one of the judges at the trial of Giordano Bruno, and concurred Bellarmine was born at Montepulciano, the son of noble, in the decision which condemned Bruno to be burned at albeit impoverished, parents, Vincenzo Bellarmino and the stake as a heretic.[5] his wife Cinzia Cervini, who was the sister of Pope Mar- [1] Upon the death of Pope Sixtus V in 1590, the Count of cellus II. As a boy he knew Virgil by heart and com- Olivares wrote to King Philip III of Spain, “Bellarmine posed a number of poems in Italian and Latin. One of ... would not do for a Pope, for he is mindful only of the his hymns, on Mary Magdalene, is included in the Roman interests of the Church and is unresponsive to the reasons Breviary. of princes.”[6] In 1602 he was made archbishop of Ca- He entered the Roman novitiate in 1560, remaining in pua. He had written against pluralism and non-residence Rome three years. He then went to a Jesuit house at of bishops within their dioceses. As bishop he put into Mondovì, in Piedmont, where he learned Greek. While at effect the reforming decrees of the Council of Trent. He Mondovì, he came to the attention of Francesco Adorno, received some votes in the 1605 conclaves which elected the local Jesuit Provincial Superior, who sent him to the Pope Leo XI, Pope Paul V, and in 1621 when Pope Gre- 1 2 4 WORKS gory XV was elected. but his being a Jesuit stood against it the same to demonstrate that by assuming him in the judgment of many of the cardinals.[1] the sun to be at the center and the earth in heaven one can save the appearances, and to demonstrate that in truth the sun is at the cen- 2.2 The Galileo case ter and the earth in heaven; for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I have In 1616, on the orders of Paul V, Bellarmine summoned very great doubts about the second, and in case Galileo, notified him of a forthcoming decree of the of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scrip- Congregation of the Index condemning the Copernican ture as interpreted by the Holy Fathers. doctrine of the mobility of the Earth and the immobil- ity of the Sun, and ordered him to abandon it.[7] Galileo In 1633, nearly twelve years after Bellarmine’s death, agreed to do so.[8] Galileo was again called before the Inquisition in this mat- When Galileo later complained of rumors to the effect ter. that he had been forced to abjure and do penance, Bel- In his article on Bellarmine in the Complete Dictionary of larmine wrote out a certificate denying the rumors, stat- Scientific Biography, Ernan McMullin cites Pierre Duhem ing that Galileo had merely been notified of the decree and Karl Popper as prominent adherents to an “often re- and informed that, as a consequence of it, the Coperni- peated” view that “in one respect, at least, Bellarmine had can doctrine could not be “defended or held”.[9] Cardinal shown himself a better scientist than Galileo”, insofar as Bellarmine believed such a demonstration could not be he supposedly denied that a “strict proof” of the Earth’s found because it would contradict the unanimous consent motion could be possible. McMullin himself emphati- of the Fathers' scriptural exegesis, to which the Council cally rejects that view as untenable.[12] of Trent, in 1546,[10] defined all Catholics must adhere. Moreover, there wasn't a scientific certainty in the Coper- nicanism and, in very truth, the reality showed the op- posite: our own eyes can observe the sun moves, while 3 Death there’s no evident trace of the movement of the earth and of the immobility of the sun, except for some hypotheti- In his old age he was bishop of Montepulciano for four cal “results” of these phenomena (as the tidal movement, years, after which he retired to the Jesuit college of St. studied by Galileo), which don't represent any logical ne- Andrew in Rome, where he died on 17 September 1621, [11] cessity of them. aged 78. Bellarmine wrote to heliocentrist Paolo Antonio Fos- carini:[11] 4 Works the Council [of Trent] prohibits interpret- ing Scripture against the common consensus Bellarmine’s books bear the stamp of their period; the of the Holy Fathers; and if Your Paternity effort for literary elegance (so-called “maraviglia”) had wants to read not only the Holy Fathers, but given place to a desire to pile up as much material as also the modern commentaries on Genesis, the possible, to embrace the whole field of human knowl- Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Joshua, you will find edge, and incorporate it into theology. His controversial all agreeing in the literal interpretation that the works provoked many replies, and were studied for some sun is in heaven and turns around the earth with decades after his death.[13] At Leuven he made extensive great speed, and that the earth is very far from studies in the Church Fathers and scholastic theologians, heaven and sits motionless at the center of the which gave him the material for his book De scriptoribus world. ecclesiasticis (Rome, 1613). It was later revised and en- larged by Sirmond, Labbeus, and Casimir Oudin. Bel- and larmine wrote the preface to the new Sixto-Clementine Vulgate.[1] I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun 4.1 Dogmatics does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with Main article: Disputationes great care in explaining the Scriptures that ap- pear contrary, and say rather that we do not un- From his research grew Disputationes de controversiis derstand them than that what is demonstrated christianae fidei (also called Controversiae), first pub- is false. But I will not believe that there is such lished at Ingolstadt in 1581–1593. This major work a demonstration, until it is shown me. Nor is was the earliest attempt to systematize the various reli- 3 gious disputes between Catholics and Protestants. Bel- 5 Canonization and final resting [6] larmine calmly and fairly reviewed the issues and de- place voted eleven years to it while at the Roman College. In 1597 he wrote the Catechism (Dottrina cristiana) in two Bellarmine was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1930; the versions (short and full) which has been translated to 50 following year he was declared a Doctor of the Church. languages, becoming one of the greatest bestsellers and His remains, in a cardinal’s red robes, are displayed be- the official teaching of the Church in 17th-19th centuries. hind glass under a side altar in the Church of Saint Ig- natius, the chapel of the Roman College, next to the body of his student, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, as he him- 4.2 Venetian Interdict self had wished. In the General Roman Calendar Saint Robert Bellarmine’s feast day is on 17 September, the Main article: Venetian Interdict day of his death; but some continue to use pre-1969 cal- endars, in which for 37 years his feast day was on 13 May.