Robert Bellarmine

Saint Robert Bellarmine

Also known as
· Robert Francis Romulus Bellarmine
· Roberto Bellarmino
· Roberto Francesco Romolo Cardinale Bellarmino

Memorial
· 17 September

Profile
Our Saint today was educated by Jesuits as a boy and then joined the Jesuits over the opposition of his father who wanted Robert to enter politics. To Roberts’s father I would ask, “What’s the difference?”

Robert became a professor of theology he wrote various works defending the church against Protestant attacks plus he wrote a children’s catechism, and a catechism for teachers.

He worked tirelessly to defend the church against various intellectual attacks. For all his work Pope Clement VIII made him Cardinal-priest. In spite of this Robert lived an austere life in Rome, giving most of his money to the poor. At one point he used the tapestries in his living quarters to clothe the poor, saying, “the walls won’t catch cold.” St. Robert was unaware of viruses as the vector for the common cold and other diseases, this was before Pasteur. But then again Pasteur probably had no idea what the fillioque was….

When it came to people’s rights he took a fundamentally democratic position - authority originates with God, is vested in the people, who entrust it to fit rulers, a concept which brought him trouble with the kings of both England and France, but apparently espoused by Tommy Jefferson and others two centuries later. The Government belongs to us…..

Contrary to popular teaching, the church had a problem with Galileo over his insulting remarks about the Pope in his writings, not his scientific findings…..the church funded Galileo after all, and inspired him to perfect the scientific method among other things. The scientific method is a tool ostensibly at least used by all scientists to the present day. Since Galileo‘s discoveries reinforced the theories of Copernicus they did not prove them conclusively to the scientific world of the time. Science is a process for inquiry, not a belief system. This needs to be reinforces even to this very day….The Science is never settled…it always leads to more questions.

Anyhoo, Galileo refused to continue to teach the Copernican model as a theory as he felt his observations proved them conclusively, there were few scientists who agreed with him at the time, but his work was indeed promising. When the church, who ran the schools, tried to reason with Galileo, (just because it is your work Gallileo, it isn’t really proven yet, use the scientific method you perfected…it is still a theory), he became stubborn and insulting. An Italian becoming stubborn and insulting when contradicted? Nonsense! In all the science classes I have ever taken it is never taught; Galileo was punished for teaching unproven theories as facts in violation of the discipline of science, not for saying the sun was the center of the solar system. A modern analogy; if I got up in front of a class at MIT and started to teach string theory was a fact they would ride me out of town on a rail! Those particle theorists can be violent if you get them mad.

Maybe the church went too far in the punishment, life in prison….at home fully cared for and able to continue to write and teach….but at his own home…..(where can I sign up for that punishment? Throw in the Flintstones and that’s my retirement dream). Anyhoo, St. Robert opposed action against Galileo Galilei in 1615, and established a friendly correspondence with him, but was forced to deliver the order for the scientist to submit to the Church. He died 17 September 1621 in Rome, Italy of natural causes

Robert was a part of the conclave of 1621, and was considered for Pope. He is a Doctor of the Church

Born
· 4 October 1542 Tuscany, Italy as Roberto Francesco Romolo

Patronage
· canon lawyers
· canonists
· catechists
· catechumens