Saint Robert Bellarmine
Bishop and Doctor of the Church
- Feast Day
- September 17
- Life
- 1542–1621
- Canonized
- 1930
- Doctor of the Church
- 1931
- Order
- Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
- Born
- Montepulciano, Tuscany
Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmino was born at Montepulciano in Tuscany on 4 October 1542, nephew on his mother's side of Pope Marcellus II. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1560, completed his studies at Padua and Louvain, and was ordained priest at Ghent in 1570. He occupied the chair of controversial theology at the new Roman College from 1576, producing his three-volume Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos (1586-1593), the most learned and irenic Catholic response to the Reformation in his generation.
Pope Clement VIII appointed him cardinal in 1599 and Archbishop of Capua in 1602; he resigned the see in 1605 to return to Rome as a curial cardinal. He served on the commissions of two papal elections, drafted catechisms still used in seminary formation, and was the principal Catholic interlocutor in the Galileo affair of 1616, in which he warned Galileo not to teach heliocentrism as proven doctrine while keeping it as a hypothesis. His own Cartesian method was severe; his personal life, austere.
He died at Rome on 17 September 1621 and was buried beside Saint Aloysius Gonzaga in the Church of Sant'Ignazio. Pope Pius XI canonized him on 29 June 1930 and declared him a Doctor of the Church on 17 September 1931. The 17 September Optional Memorial corresponds to his death.
Bellarmine is the patron of catechists. His shorter catechisms in question-and-answer form taught generations of children, and his treatises De ascensione mentis in Deum (On the Ascent of the Mind to God) and De arte bene moriendi (On the Art of Dying Well) endure as classics of Counter-Reformation spirituality. He is one of only thirty-seven Doctors of the Church.
Patronages
catechists · canon lawyers
Catholic Churches Named After Saint Robert Bellarmine
20 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Robert Bellarmine's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:
- St Robert Bellarmine (Househillwood) — Glasgow, SCT
- Saint Robert Bellarmine — Warrington Township, PA
- St. Robert Bellarmine Co-Cathedral — Freehold, NJ
- St. Robert Bellarmine — Cortland, OH
- St. Robert Bellarmine — Johnston, RI
- St. Robert Bellarmine Church — El Campo, TX
- St. Robert Bellarmine — Sedan, KS
- Saint Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church — Reform, AL
- St. Robert Bellarmine Church — North Manchester, IN
- St. Robert Bellarmine Parish — Andover, MA
- Saint Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church — North Versailles, PA
- St. Robert Bellarmine — Reform, AL
- St. Robert Bellarmine — Atmore, AL
- Saint Robert Bellarmine Roman Catholic Church — Freehold, NJ
- Saint Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church — Fernley, NV
- Saint Robert Bellarmine Chapel — Fairfax, VA
- Chapel of St. Robert Bellarmine — Normal, IL
- Saint Robert Bellarmine Roman Catholic Church — Chicago, IL
- Saint Robert Bellarmine Parish — Blue Springs, MO
- St. Robert Bellarmine — Bayside, NY
Sources