The Italian theologian and Jesuit St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) was a cardinal, an adviser to popes, and a strong defender of the Roman Catholic position in the controversies stemming from the Protestant Reformation.

Robert Bellarmine was born on Oct. 4, 1542, in Montepulciano. As a young man of 18, he entered the Jesuits and underwent that group's rigorous intellectual training and discipline. After he was ordained a priest in 1570, he was assigned to teach theology at the University of Louvain, then one of the centers of Roman Catholic defensive scholarship against the Reformation. The young, talented, and religiously sincere Jesuit quickly became known for his effective presentation of Roman Catholic beliefs. He was brought to Rome in 1576 to lecture at the new Jesuit College. He worked there for 12 years to consolidate the Church's theological positions, and out of this research came his most important publication, the three volume Disputations on the...