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Cover art: “Portrait of St. Robert Bellarmine.” Anonymous, first half of the seventeenth century. Rome, Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio.
This eBook edition published in 2013.
eBook ISBNs:
Kindle 978-1-61487-636-6
E-PUB 978-1-61487-244-3
CONTENTS
Abbreviations and Frequently Cited Works
ON TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY
On the Temporal Power of the Pope. Against William Barclay
On the Primary Duty of the Supreme Pontiff
Index of Works Cited by Bellarmine
Bibliography of Works Cited by the Editor
Overview
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