Saint Robert Bellarmine

St. Robert Bellarmine: Father of Three Revolutions

In order to get a divorce from his marriage, Henry VIII, the king of England, declared before the world that he, and not the Pope, was head of the Catholic Church in his country. We wonder how a simple layman like this ruler, who was not even an ordained cleric, could make such a preposterous claim. He was not just saying that he was the civil leader of England, but even the highest religious authority of its Church. He simply usurped a spiritual power for himself, and worst of all, got away with it (he had the English army to back him up and of the 72 bishops in the nation, only one had the courage to oppose him). Thus, the British Isles broke away from Catholicism.

In the following century, King James I, who seemed to like very much Henry's claim, went further ahead and developed the theory that a monarch's power is of Divine Right or given directly to him by God. He appealed to the Old Testament and King David to back up his arguments. Now we have the king of England almost on par with the same type of authority that the successor of St. Peter possessed. This alarmed the Catholic Church, and St. Robert Bellarmine, a Jesuit Italian cardinal, came to its defense. St. Robert was a brilliant man and developed some political theories of his own. He said that power and authority originates from God, but is passed through the people and delegated to their rulers, who represent them. Kings, therefore, are responsible to the populace and must give an account of their actions to them. The authority is invested in the people, and therefore is not absolute (but relative) in a monarch. His authority comes and goes as the populace wishes it and regulates it by the laws that are promulgated.

St. Robert's political theories caused a sensation in 17th century Europe. The Anglicans and Protestants became frightened and established special chairs in the universities just to combat his ideas. It was no use however. The spark had been lit and a wildfire of ideas burned throughout Europe. Philosophers like Montesquieu, John Locke and Thomas Jefferson were to pick up on Robert Bellarmine and develop his concepts further. As a result, the world saw in succession the English, American and French Revolution take place. It is too bad that there were no Catholic thinkers after St. Robert to develop a Christian political philosophy. The world waited too late when Maritain finally came around in the 20th century to take up this theme.

The world, however, is still in need of a unique, Christian thinker like St. Robert Bellarmine, to curb the judicial power of the Supreme Court, and develop an economic democracy, against the aggressive and totalitarian encroachments of financial and industrial dictators.

Through her son St. Robert, the world has much to thank the Catholic Church for her part in establishing democracies in the world. In truth, there are many other things the Church did, but never received credit for. Hospitals, schools, universities are things that she invented, but became part of the social structure. It is not something that politicians had thought up. Even the famous works of European literature were primarily inspired in her saints and mystics: Milton's "Paradise Lost" was taken from a poem by St. Avitus of Vienne, Dante's "Divine Comedy" had its origins in St. Fursey's actual visions of purgatory and hell and John Bunyan's "Pilgrim Progress" shows much similitude to Bl. Raymond Lull's novel "Blanquerna". It is only a matter of justice that the world give credit where credit is due.

Anthony Mellace