Saint Robert Bellarmine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Robert Bellarmine was born in 1542 at Montepulciano in Tuscany, a nephew of Pope Marcellus II, and entered the Jesuits in 1560. He taught at Louvain and then at the Roman College, where his lectures became the Controversies, a large defence of Catholic teaching against the Protestant Reformers that was read across Europe. He also wrote two short catechisms that were used for centuries. Made a cardinal in 1599, he was archbishop of Capua from 1602 to 1605, then returned to Rome. In 1616 it fell to him to tell Galileo that he must not hold or defend the motion of the earth. He lived simply and gave much to the poor. He died in Rome on 17 September 1621, was canonized in 1930 and named a Doctor of the Church in 1931.