Robert Bellarmine, SJ was an Italian Jesuit and a cardinal of the Catholic Church.
24 Facts About Robert Bellarmine
2.
Robert Bellarmine was canonized a saint in 1930 and named Doctor of the Church, one of only 37.
3.
Robert Bellarmine was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation.
4.
Robert Bellarmine supported the reform decrees of the Council of Trent.
5.
Robert Bellarmine is widely remembered for his role in the Giordano Bruno affair, the Galileo affair, and the trial of Friar Fulgenzio Manfredi.
6.
Robert Bellarmine was born in Montepulciano, the son of noble, albeit impoverished, parents, Vincenzo Bellarmino and his wife Cinzia Cervini, who was the sister of Pope Marcellus II.
7.
Robert Bellarmine entered the Roman Jesuit novitiate in 1560, remaining in Rome for three years.
8.
Robert Bellarmine then went to a Jesuit house at Mondovi, in Piedmont, where he learned Greek.
9.
Robert Bellarmine was the first Jesuit to teach at the university, where the subject of his course was the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.
10.
Robert Bellarmine's lectures were published under the title De Controversias in four large volumes.
11.
Robert Bellarmine was in the city during its siege by Henry of Navarre.
12.
Robert Bellarmine was made rector of the Roman College in 1592, examiner of bishops in 1598, and cardinal in 1599.
13.
Robert Bellarmine had written against pluralism and non-residence of bishops within their dioceses.
14.
Robert Bellarmine received some votes in the 1605 conclaves which elected Pope Leo XI, Pope Paul V, and in 1621 when Pope Gregory XV was elected, but his being a Jesuit counted against him in the judgement of many of the cardinals.
15.
In 1616, on the orders of Paul V, Robert Bellarmine summoned Galileo, notified him of a forthcoming decree of the Congregation of the Index condemning the Copernican doctrine of the mobility of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun, and ordered him to abandon it.
16.
When Galileo later complained of rumours to the effect that he had been forced to abjure and do penance, Robert Bellarmine wrote out a certificate denying the rumours, stating that Galileo had merely been notified of the decree and informed that, as a consequence of it, the Copernican doctrine could not be "defended or held".
17.
In other passages, Robert Bellarmine argued that he did not support the heliocentric model for the lack of evidence of the time.
18.
Robert Bellarmine retired to Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi, the Jesuit college of Saint Andrew in Rome.
19.
Robert Bellarmine's books bear the stamp of their period; the effort for literary elegance had given place to a desire to pile up as much material as possible, to embrace the whole field of human knowledge, and incorporate it into theology.
20.
Robert Bellarmine prepared for posterity his own commentary on each of the Psalms.
21.
Robert Bellarmine reviewed the issues and devoted eleven years to it while at the Roman College.
22.
Robert Bellarmine became involved in controversy with King James I of England.
23.
Robert Bellarmine was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1930; the following year he was declared a Doctor of the Church.
24.
Robert Bellarmine's remains, in a cardinal's red robes, are displayed behind glass under a side altar in the Church of Saint Ignatius, the chapel of the Roman College, next to the body of his student, Aloysius Gonzaga, as he himself had wished.