St. Robert Bellarmine

Today is the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine. St. Robert was a Jesuit cardinal who took the controversies of his day head-on. He delivered a series of lectures that reverberated throughout Europe. He served on the commission to revise the text of the Vulgate, dealing shrewdly with errors initiated, but not officially promulgated, by Pope Sixtus V. St. Robert had one of the most brilliant minds the Church has ever seen and was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI in 1931. He is the patron saint of catechists.
What we can learn from St. Robert is fearlessness in proclaiming the truth. St. Robert was not afraid to deal with the controversies of his day, but met them in a spirit of both charity and intellectual honesty. St. Robert Bellarmine, pray for us!