September 17
Saints of the Day

Saint Robert Bellarmine, 1542-1621
A Cardinal learned Italian Jesuit Doctor of the Church, who wrote Church history, 2 catechisms, and worked hard in the Contra-reformation

    When Robert Bellarmine was ordained in 1570, the study of Church history and the Fathers of the Church was in a sad state of neglect. A promising scholar from his youth in Tuscany, he devoted his energy to these two subjects, as well as to Scripture, in order to systematize Church doctrine against the attacks of the Reformers and he made two Catechisms ordered by the Pope. He was the first Jesuit to become a professor at Louvain.

    His most famous work is his three-volume Disputations on the Controversies of the Christian faith. Particularly noteworthy are the sections on the temporal power of the pope and the role of the laity.

    Created Cardinal in 1598 by Pope Clement VIII, though he was not a Bishop yet the Pope made him Cardinal on the grounds that "he had not his equal for learning.", and he continued living 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 that "the walls won't catch cold."
    Archbishop of Capua in 1602