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Robert Bellarmine was one of the most influential theologians and political theorists in post-Reformation Europe.¹ Born in 1542, Bellarmine entered the Society of Jesus in 1560 and began his studies at the Roman College. In 1569 he was sent to Louvain, where he divided his time between preaching and teaching theology, acquiring a distinguished reputation for both. In 1576 he was called back to Rome to the chair of Controversiae, that is, to teach the course on the leading theological controversies between Protestants and Catholics, at the Roman College, of which he became rector in 1592. The lectures soon grew into one of Bellarmine’s major works, the Disputationes de controversiis Christianae fidei, or simply Controversiae.² Here the doctrine of the pope’s authority to intervene indirectly in temporal matters when those touched spiritual issues (potestas papalis indirecta) found its first and fullest development, even though Bellarmine later modified specific points several times.³

Bellarmine’s intellectual efforts gained him a more central position within the Roman Curia but he also encountered dangerous setbacks. In 1587 he became a member of the Congregation of the Index and in 1598 became one of the consultores of the Inquisition.⁴ Meanwhile, the implications of the doctrine of potestas indirecta angered Pope Sixtus V, who often opposed the Society of Jesus because he thought the Society’s doctrines diminished the authority of the bishop of Rome.⁵ In 1589-90 Sixtus moved to put volume 1 of Controversiae on the Index of Prohibited Books while Bellarmine was in France on a diplomatic mission.⁶ However, the Congregation of the Index and, later, the Society of Jesus resisted this. In 1590 Sixtus died, and with him the project of the Sistine Index also died.⁷

After the death of Sixtus, Bellarmine’s star rose higher and higher, especially during the pontificate of Clement VIII. In 1599 he was appointed cardinal and soon after became one of the pope’s main advisers on the so-called controversy de auxiliis. This most delicate controversy of the early modern Catholic Church began in 1588 with the publication of the Spanish Jesuit Luis de Molina’s Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis [The Concordance of Free Will with the Gifts of Grace], considered by many theologians, and especially Dominicans, to have a Pelagian flavor.⁸ The controversy caused a dangerous breach within the Church concerning the role of grace in human salvation, a key doctrinal division between Protestants and Catholics. The controversy ended only in 1607, when Pope Paul V avoided an official decision and commanded Jesuits and Dominicans to remain in “internal” theological debates and to avoid further public contention. During the long debate Bellarmine demonstrated his skills of intellectual and political diplomacy: despite being a Jesuit, he did not side completely with Molina and worked to avoid the scandal that an open, authoritative condemnation of either position would have caused the Catholic Church.⁹ His relationship with Clement VIII was not smooth, however, and certain implications of Bellarmine’s political theory put him at odds with the pope, as the third text of this selection shows.

The beginning of the seventeenth century marked a shift in Bellarmine’s intellectual interests from theory to political dynamics. The cardinal was increasingly engaged in some of the most important political controversies, all linked to his theological views. Bellarmine contributed to the controversy of the Republic of Venice versus the Roman See. This concerned the Interdetto, that is, excommunication ordered by Pope Paul V in 1606 against Venice as an act of retaliation for a series of laws issued in 1604-5. Those laws attacked clerical exemption from civil jurisdiction by claiming that two clergymen guilty of secular crimes should be put on trial in a civil tribunal and forbade churches from being built and ecclesiastical properties from being alienated without the Venetian Senate’s approval.¹⁰ Aside from the specific legislative measures, the issue at stake was the extent of the jurisdictions of the secular state of Venice and of the Roman See.

The authors who wrote in defense of Venice, especially Paolo Sarpi, who was probably the most effective supporter of the cause of the Republic, often mentioned Bellarmine as an author whose doctrine would indeed support the Venetian laws, as it was Bellarmine who, after all, had written against the direct power of the pope in temporal affairs.¹¹ The Jesuit cardinal responded in a number of pamphlets defending his own doctrine, for example Risposta di Bellarmino alle opposizioni di F. Paolo Sarpi Servita and Risposta del Card. Bellarmino al Trattato delli sette theologi di Venezia (both Rome, 1606).

Another noteworthy element in this controversy is that Bellarmine’s position again caused problems in Rome, where some theologians thought it more effective to reply to the Venetian controversy not by stressing the indirect power of the pope in temporal matters, but by reinforcing the plenitude of power of the papacy tout court, in temporal as well as in spiritual matters.¹² Indeed, in 1607 Bellarmine decided to publish a revision of his own published works in order to clarify certain points of his doctrine, including the exemption of the clergy, which he thought had been misinterpreted by people like Sarpi and used against the Roman See.

In those years another political controversy involved Bellarmine’s doctrine of the indirecta potestas even more profoundly, namely the debate over the Oath of Allegiance, promulgated by James VI and I in 1606 after the Gunpowder Plot. The oath was offered to the king’s Catholic subjects to test their loyalty in temporal matters, but it also laid a heavy mortgage on the profession of their faith, namely to renounce as “impious and heretical” the Catholic doctrine that the pope could depose a heretical sovereign and absolve his subjects from their duties of obedience. This mixture of a declaration of political loyalty with a theological statement rejecting the pope’s power in temporal matters was intended to extend James’s temporal jurisdiction over his Catholic subjects a little beyond simple political obedience. This struck at the heart of Bellarmine’s doctrine, which was introduced precisely to extend the pope’s spiritual jurisdiction beyond simple spiritual authority, and indirectly into political matters. Bellarmine published numerous responses to James, Lancelot Andrewes, and William Barclay: his work against the last of these is the second and major text of this selection.¹³ Once again, his intervention caused much controversy in both the Protestant and the Catholic worlds, as we will see.

By the second half of the 1610s it was clear that the doctrine of Bellarmine, perhaps the most visible theologian in Rome, was becoming very problematic. On the one hand, many considered it the ultimate bulwark of papal authority in temporal matters, affecting not only Protestant monarchies like England, but also, and more dangerously from the point of view of the Roman See, Catholic monarchies with a tradition of strong secular authority, such as those of France. On the other hand, many in Rome thought Bellarmine’s doctrine insufficiently papalist by rendering the temporal authority of the pope only an indirect one. For these reasons, in the last year of his life the cardinal avoided the political arena and concentrated on his role as censor of books and opinions, a role that nevertheless kept him in the spotlight. For example, in 1616 he wrote the precept prohibiting Galileo Galilei from publicly teaching Copernicanism, the central accusation against Galileo during the second phase of his trial in 1632-33.¹⁴ Bellarmine also maintained his impressive scholarly production.

In 1621 Bellarmine participated in the conclave that elected Gregory XV. However, his health was rapidly deteriorating, and in September of that year the cardinal died. Bellarmine was not canonized until 1931, although attempts at canonization started as early as 1627 and were reproposed throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. This long delay reflects both the complexity of Bellarmine’s views and the complexity of the context in which they were discussed.