When Pope Clement VIII called Robert Bellarmine to be a cardinal he said: " We elect this man because he has not his equal for learning in the Church of God."
        Robert Bellarmine was born in 1542 in the small town of Montepulciano in Tuscany. When Robert wanted to become a Jesuit, his father opposed his wishes. At lasted he relented and wrote to the General in Rome, Fr. James Laynez, to receive his son into the Society of Jesus but let him stay at home for another year to test his vocation. In an unprecedented step Fr. Laynez agreed and also accepted the year at home as his noviciate. When the year was over, he came to Rome and pronounced his first vows to the General.
        He moved into the Roman College, in Rome, and began his study of philosophy. He continued his studies at Florence and Piedmont. Though he was not ordained he started to preach in the Cathedrals. For theology, he was sent to Padua, where, again, he would preach in the cathedral. To finish his theological studies he went to Louvain. He was ordained in 1570 and in that very year in which the Jesuits opened their own theological faculty in the University of Louvain, he was chosen to be the first Professor of  Theology. During his six years there, he gave his lectures on theology but also made an intensive study of the teachings of Calvin and Luther. Then he was called back to Rome where he was made Professor of Controversial Theology at the Roman College. Here he started to write his volumes called "Controversies", which were read avidly by both Catholics and Protestants alike on account of its balanced and reasonable presentation.
        He became the Provincial of the Naples Province. Then he was called back to Rome and made a Cardinal. It was here that he finished his Catechism which in a very short time was translated in sixty-two languages and was still in use in the middle of the nineteenth century. He became the leader in the Catholic Reformation and was elected by various Popes of his times to many commissions. While he championed the Pope's power in spiritual matters, his views on temporal power of the Popes cause much controversy. Today it is accepted as the true doctrine of the Church.
He was appointed a Cardinal in 1599 and them Archbishop of Capua in 1602. He was greatly loved as a pastor of his people.
In his seventies he often requested the Popes to let him return to the noviceship at Sant Andrea but was refused permission on the grounds that he was too valuable for the Church to allow him to go.  However in 1621, he was allowed to return and soon was overcome with a fever from which he never recovered. He died in the morning of the seventeenth of September. He wanted a simply funeral but at the orders of the Pope this was not allowed.
        He was canonized in 1930 and was made a Doctor of the Church.

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