St. Robert Bellarmine
Today is the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine. In my opinion he is the greatest Christian thinker, Biblical scholar, apologist, and theologian in the last 500 years. I would also say that he is the second greatest Christian theologian of all time after St. Thomas Aquinas. In other words, better than St. Augustine of Hippo, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. He was born in 1542 when the Protestant “reformation” was in full swing. He eventually became a Cardinal of the Catholic Church and participated in three papal conclaves. He is a canonized Saint and a Doctor of the Church. There are only 36 Catholics who hold the title Doctor of the Church and it is only reserved for the greatest theologians.
He was also the greatest Jesuit in the history of the Society of Jesus and produced many works against Protestantism. His works focused specifically on the religions of Calvinism and Lutheranism. In 1621 the Lord took him home but his legacy will never be forgotten. Thanks to the work of Ryan Grant of Mediatrix Press, many of his works are being translated from Latin into English for the first time in history. Now his work is being made available to the common man as opposed to only Priests and Latin scholars who could understand the language. Grant’s website can be found here:
Ryan Grant also recently did a radio show where he talked about the work of St. Robert Bellarmine. It can be found here:
Regardless of these recent translations, many of his works have already been translated into English. I recommend all readers of this blog, Catholic and non-Catholic to read the works of this brilliant scholar. God has blessed the Church with his writings so we should all make use of them.
St. Robert Bellarmine,
Pray for us.
A Commentary On The Book Of Psalms By St. Robert Bellarmine
My son’s name day! I chose this wise Robert as his patron. Hopefully it will rub off!
I have a request: General Franco. Was he a good Catholic or not? Also, what is a good solid source for the truth of the circumstances around the Spanish Civil war? How do Goeorge Orwell’s report in Homage to Catalonia and Ernest Hemigway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls compare to the truth?
Just when you have time though. I know you focus is Islam. Maybe the Islam occupation left something in Spain that helped create the situation?
General Franco is a long discussion but I’ll keep that topic in mind. However, regarding your last point, I don’t think Islam played a role. By the 1300’s Islamic influence in Spain was severely reduced and by 1492 they were expelled entirely. The Spanish civil war happens in the 1900’s so any Islamic influence would have been gone at this point. The more likely candidate is militant secularism arising in Spain because the civil war was the Nationalists against the Republicans who were secular socialists.
What is interesting is that Adolf Hitler backed the Nationalists but regretted it later because he theorized it would have been easy to turn the socialists into National Socialists. It’s certainly an interesting topic for sure because even after WWII Spain had a huge resurgence of Catholicism.