Bellarmine's systematic studies of
theology began at Padua in 1567 and 1568, where his teachers were adherents of
Thomism. In 1569, he was sent to finish his studies at the
University of Leuven in
Brabant. There he was ordained and obtained a reputation both as a professor and as a preacher. He was the first Jesuit to teach at the university, where the subject of his course was the
Summa Theologica of
Thomas Aquinas. He was involved in a controversy with
Michael Baius on the subject of
Grace and
free will, and wrote a
Hebrew grammar. His residency in Leuven lasted seven years. In poor health, in 1576 he made a journey to Italy. Here he remained, commissioned by
Pope Gregory XIII to lecture on
polemical theology in the new
Roman College, now known as the
Pontifical Gregorian University. Later, he would promote the cause of the beatification of
Aloysius Gonzaga, who had been a student at the college during Bellarmine's tenure.
New duties after 1589 Until 1589, Bellarmine was occupied as professor of theology. After the murder in that year of
Henry III of France,
Pope Sixtus V sent
Enrico Caetani as
legate to Paris to negotiate with the
Catholic League of France, and chose Bellarmine to accompany him as theologian. He was in the city during its siege by
Henry of Navarre. Upon the death of Pope Sixtus V in 1590, the
Count of Olivares wrote to
Philip II of Spain, "Bellarmine ... would not do for a Pope, for he is mindful only of the interests of the Church and is unresponsive to the reasons of princes." In 1602 he was made
archbishop of Capua. He had written against bishops failing to reside in their
dioceses. As bishop he put into effect the reforming decrees of the
Council of Trent. He received some votes in the 1605
conclaves which elected
Pope Leo XI,
Pope Paul V, and in 1621 when
Pope Gregory XV was elected, but his being a Jesuit counted against him in the judgement of many of the cardinals.
The Galileo case In 1616, on the orders of Paul V, Bellarmine summoned
Galileo, notified him of a forthcoming
decree of the
Congregation of the Index condemning the
Copernican doctrine of the mobility of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun, and ordered him to abandon it. Galileo agreed to do so. When Galileo later complained of rumours to the effect that he had been forced to abjure and do penance, Bellarmine wrote out a certificate denying the rumours, stating that Galileo had merely been notified of the decree and informed that, as a consequence of it, the Copernican doctrine could not be "defended or held". Unlike the previously mentioned formal injunction
(see earlier footnote), this certificate would have allowed Galileo to continue using and teaching the mathematical content of Copernicus's theory as a purely theoretical device for predicting the apparent motions of the planets. According to some of his letters, Cardinal Bellarmine believed that a demonstration for heliocentrism could not be found because it would contradict the unanimous consent of the
Fathers'
scriptural exegesis, to which the
Council of Trent, in 1546,
defined all Catholics must adhere. In other passages, Bellarmine argued that he did not support the heliocentric model for the lack of evidence of the time ("I will not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown to me"). Bellarmine wrote to
heliocentrist Paolo Antonio Foscarini in 1615: According to
Pierre Duhem and
Karl Popper "in one respect, at least, Bellarmine had shown himself a better scientist than Galileo by disallowing the possibility of a "strict proof" of the earth's motion, on the grounds that an astronomical theory merely "saves the appearances" without necessarily revealing what "really happens". Philosopher of science
Thomas Kuhn, in his book,
The Copernican Revolution, after commenting on
Cesare Cremonini, who refused to look through Galileo's
telescope, wrote: ==Death==