Sep 17 Robert Bellarmine

Thommy and John

Good morning
I love you

Going a day ahead to the seventeenth because no biggies on the sixteenth – plus, it’s always an uplifting fantasy to think ahead, to bring the future into the now while drawing from our past…. Going beyond ourselves. Being more than who we are by assimilating the best of whom we’ve come from and of whom we aspire to be….



September 17

Robert Bellarmine, S.J. b. 1542 d. 1621
Entered the Society of Jesus in 1560
(Ignatius of Loyola died 1556)

catholic online and catholic encyclopedia on line

Dr. Frist Sr. et al. started HCA in 1968. At the time, I had no idea that a pioneering healthcare company was started at Parkview Hospital in Nashville Tennessee. 1968 was a big year in my life. The second year in the novitiate. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy both assassinated {April and June}. I got to spend time at Bishop Connolly H.S., Fairfield University, St. Mary’s parish in Bridgeport, and Boston City Hospital. My formation in Ignatian spirituality was intense…. Somewhere around 1983 I became aware of the existence of HCA. I was looking for my next opportunity beyond UAB and discovered that my Ph.D. and MBA and my psychology and leadership experience and my aspiration to lead hospitals in service of the mentally ill were a great fit for the burgeoning psychiatric hospital industry – of which HCA was a main player….. I joined HCA in 1985. And got to meet Dr. Frist Sr. (and Jr. and the other pioneers of the company as well as the men and women who were shaping the best of the for profit healthcare industry. My years with HCA were the best of my career so far – being with the best and the brightest with the most resources – we (I) had to work at screwing it up

I, of course, did not meet Ignatius. In my two years at Cheverus High School and then the two years in the novitiate, I got to meet some of the holiest and smartest men God put on this earth. In addition to the men assigned to Cheverus and Shadowbrook aka St Stanilaus Koska Novitiate, I got to meet some of the men who shaped Vatican II and a few who were at the point of the anti-war efforts in our country – because they stopped by where I happened to be living. It wasn’t’ so much the great ones who helped me grow the vocational seed planted in Portland. It was the holy ones who generously showed me and taught me how to imbibe the Ignatian spirituality on my journey to be closer to Jesus: to become a better person. [to pray as if everything depended on God: to work as if everything depended on me….] I still do appreciate how these men, four hundred years after Ignatius – and on the other side of several suppressions of the order – passed on to me Ignatius, the founding fathers of the order, and the wealth of accumulated holiness and wisdom…

I did get to meet Dr. Frist Sr. And Frist Jr. and Jack Massey and Henry Hooker and David Williams and and and. And I was around enough times when Jack Bovannder, today’s chairman and ceo, to know that he has assimilated the lessons of the founders, enriched them with his persona and experiences, and continues to develop HCA as The healthcare company. I believe I learned enough from my leaders and colleagues and cohorts during my brief time at HCA to not only pass on and enrich HCA’s culture at HCA but to also carry those lessons with me wherever I’ve been since then.

What does this have to do with Robert Bellarmine and you? From whence you come, from who you come, whom you choose, whom you choose to emulate - - it all matters. Some of it is circumstantial and not your choice – e.g., your parents, your family, most of the first 19 or 21 years of your life as you evolve your own persona within the context of your birthright. Some of it you get to choose – especially the people you bring into your life; the people you seek out; the examples you pursue….


Robert Bellarmine’s mother, a niece of Pope Marcellus II, was dedicated to almsgiving, prayer, meditation, fasting, and mortifications of the body. Imagine how different your lives would have been if you were related to the Pope – any one of the popes so far in your life time. Unfortunately that’d mean you wouldn’t be Irish – so, it’s a good thing you’re not related to a pope. I’m guessing we have some priests and bishops in our lineage somewhere back across the sea…. Imagine how very different your life would be if your mother were Catholic, especially if she’d been born and raised Catholic and had her own familial traditions of almsgiving, prayer, meditation, fasting et al., especially basing her holiness and spirituality in the Eucharist with scripture and tradition.

Robert Bellarmine joined the Society of Jesus, a radically different and brand new [1540] religious order – one of whose uniquenesses is its fourth vow of obedience to the Pope. How Robert Bellarmine chose this route to fulfill his vocation to the priesthood and service to God’s people is worthy of your study. For me it was an opportunity to join the Pope’s marines…. Robert Bellarmine went to the Jesuit school in his home town. In a similar way as I was introduced to the Jesuits at Cheverus. Well, our principal and rector and provincial didn’t make an extra effort to recruit me – like they would have the son of the sister of a local powerful cardinal and future pope.

Robert Bellarmine was blessed with extraordinary talent as well as holiness. He taught at Louvain – not only advancing our theological knowledge but also an ardent defender of our faith and the pope. In 1576, merely 34 years old, Robert Bellarmine became the chair of theology at the Roman College [newly founded as The Chair of Controversies! Wouldn’t it be cool to be identified as the defender of the faith in the midst of all controversies?! Maybe not in theology but say in set design or in mathematics?! Robert Bellarmine’s "De Controversiis" systematically identify and refute the controversies of his day.], becoming Rector in 1592, Provincial of Naples in 1594, Cardinal in 1598. - - talk about a skyrocketed career!

In 1599, the Pope called on Robert Bellarmine to authoritatively settle the dispute between Thomists and Molinists about the relationship of efficacious grace and human liberty. The Pope was looking for an authoritative, definitive answer. Robert Bellarmine, both scholar and churchman persuade the pontiff to leave the debate over for further discussion in the schools, the disputants on either side being strictly forbidden to indulge in censures or condemnations of their adversaries.

Robert Bellarmine became renowned – and got into the canonization tract – because his scholarship and his preaching on behalf of the Apostolic See were successful against the anti-clerics in Venice and the politics of James I of England. Robert Bellarmine was prolific in his writings, his preachings, and his personal efforts to defend our faith in such a way as protect the faithful from heretical influence and even convert those who would attack the Church. …. How will you become renowned? As you pursue your vocation, do you strive for the perfection to which Jesus and our faith and religion call you? In addition to your personal development, how do you strive to enhance the faith and development of others? How do you take your talents and resources to maximize God’s will in your life and in the lives for whom you are responsible?

I recommend Robert Bellarmine’s writings to you, especially in our era of debate about Church-State relations. This sixteenth century theologian, church father, and statesman laid the foundation for democratic principles of church-state relations. Authority comes from God. This authority is vested in the people who then entrust it in their rulers.

We are known for our heritage and our legacy. Our writings bring us forward in time. Moreso, our influence on students and colleagues. [and, for those of us blessed with children, through our families.] Robert Bellarmine was Aloysius Gonzaga’s spiritual director. If there is a youth among the saints with whom to become intimately familiar, Aloysius Gonzaga is he For influencing whom will you be known? Robert Bellarmine helped Francis de Sales obtain approval of the Visitation Order. We accrue friends by being friends to others. We receive help by helping others. Pass it forward! And it comes back a hundred fold. Who will you be known for helping? Our church didn’t treat Galileo very well – the ole Church-Science evolution! [punny, yes?] Robert Bellarmine was an extraordinary scholar and a distinguished churchman. He stepped in to alleviate or ameliorate our Church’s actions against Galileo. He didn’t have to. He had his own position to be concerned about. And yet, Robert Bellarmine stuck his neck out for him. For whom will you earn the turtle award? For whom will you stick your neck out – because it is right!?

In the case of Galileo, Robert Bellarmine had always shown great interest in the discoveries of that investigator, and was on terms of friendly correspondence with him. Robert Bellarmine’s attitude towards scientific theories in seeming contradiction with Scripture sets the foundation for our modern approach - - If, as was undoubtedly the case then with Galileo's heliocentric theory, a scientific theory is insufficiently proved, it should be advanced only as an hypothesis; but if, as is the case with this theory now, it is solidly demonstrated, care must be taken to interpret Scripture only in accordance with it. Church and science are not mutually exclusive. They must inform one another.


We readily devour his biography. But the facts of history are not the essence of the man. As the Catholic Encyclopedia on line tells us: “His spirit of prayer, his singular delicacy of conscience and freedom from sin, his spirit of humility and poverty, together with the disinterestedness which he displayed as much under the cardinal's robes as under the Jesuit's gown, his lavish charity to the poor, and his devotedness to work, had combined to impress those who knew him intimately with the feeling that he was of the number of the saints.” Robert Bellarmine was infused with his closeness with Jesus. He could not have, would not have done much of what he achieved if he hadn’t responded to that love with all that he had….

Robert Bellarmine was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1930, and declared a Doctor of the Universal Church in 1931. He is the patron saint of catechists.



Robert Bellarmine is a favorite saint of mine.

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