St. Robert Bellarmine was the Joseph Ratzinger of his day: A brilliant young scholar at the time of an ecumenical council (Trent for Bellarmine, Vatican II for Ratzinger) who would go on to high ecclesiastical office in the post-conciliar period. He joined the Jesuits just twenty years after their founding, and rose to become rector of the Roman College (now the Pontifical Gregorian University). Eighty years ago, when a young Avery Dulles converted to the Catholic faith at Harvard, he took “Robert” as his confirmation name. Dulles saw the great Jesuit scholar as a witness to the harmony of faith and reason.
 

The post St. Robert Bellarmine at 400 appeared first on The Catholic Thing.