#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #ITALY #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Italy, FDCA - Il Cantiere #10-12: Roberto Bellarmino, il (santo) martello degli eretici - Francisco Soriano (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 For many scholars, critics and above all god-fearing, Roberto Bellarmino

(1542-1621, Jesuit, cardinal, director of the Vatican library, head of the
Inquisition and, finally, a saint, went down in history for his interventions in
the trial against Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei) was "an open and balanced
intellectual, capable of exercising his task with a critical spirit and
authority, with rigor and firmness, but also attentive to the needs of the
Church's tradition and contemporary culture". ---- The period from the end of the
sixteenth century to the first half of the seventeenth century represented, for
the dialectic between the Catholic Church and science (the latter understood
above all as human progress and liberation from the snares of magic and false
religious beliefs) , a dramatic moment characterized by a strenuous and painful
struggle carried out by many protagonists of human history. Most of the victims
of the Inquisition were sacrificed on the altar of hypocrisy and power and paid
for the consistency of ideas with their own lives. Bellarmino was judge,
inquisitor and executioner.

Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Roberto Bellarmino was one of
the most famous theologians of the Society of Jesus and of the Church. Clement
VIII during the consistory for the new cardinals, gave him an unprecedented
eulogy: "We choose the one who has no equal in the Church of God in terms of
doctrine; moreover he is the grandson of the excellent and most holy Pope
Marcellus II". Bellarmine entered the Society of Jesus in 1560 and soon showed
very marked skills as a preacher, first in Lovania, proposing himself as an
interpreter and diffuser of the Catholic faith with the aim of "converting the
heretic from his bad faith", without disdaining to refute the divine truths to
Protestants and, later, he wrote the "Controversie", "a masterpiece of historical
research and at the same time a model of argumentation, Bellarmine will support
the theory of the pope's indirect power over political power which, like what the
author himself affirmed, had already been developed by Thomas Aquinas in the
Middle Ages. The novelty was Bellarmine's accent in supporting the complete
autonomy of political power, so much so as to cost him at the hands of Sixtus V
(who believed papal power absolutely sovereign over the world), the banning of
his Confessions, relegating them to the forbidden books. and prohibited.

The angularity of character was also evident towards the popes, as in the case
that concerned a dispute with Clement VIII who appointed him cardinal, but did
not hesitate to send him away from Rome, marginalizing him in Capua with the
function of archbishop from 1602 to 1605. he had been accused of claiming that
the pope was merely a servant of the Church and not a master. Not even at that
juncture did he betray his propensity and self-denial to pastoral activity, very
intense, not even when after being "confined" he was recalled to Rome for the
conclave. The theologian was the protagonist, above all, in the trial against
Giordano Bruno, whom he sent to the stake on February 17, 1600 in Campo de
'Fiori. Many critics delimit Bellarmino's responsibilities, but it is really
difficult to reduce his incisive and decisive action in the trial against Bruno.
His activism towards Galileo is also well documented. Bellarmine studied the
Copernican theory and met Galileo in 1606. He sent a letter to the scientist
advising him not to publicize the Copernicus theory also because, according to
him, it had not been proven: the fear consisted in the possibility that the new
astronomical ideas could with their scientificity contradict the "dictation" of
the Holy Scriptures. In fact, the Vatican itself claims today that Galileo had
been saved by Bellarmine, his main accuser, who personally wrote a document in
which he defined Galileo as not a heretic, even if his ideas tended dangerously
in that direction. The trial was celebrated in the Sant ' office from 1616 to
1633. However, we must not forget that Galileo did not save his life for the soft
quotations of Bellarmino or for the "flexibility" of the judges who condemned him
anyway, but for the famous abjuration, unforgivable act of compulsion that the
clergy had demanded under the threat of torture and execution. A sad and shameful
chapter for the Church which remembers, with a certain hypocrisy, that Galileo
was sentenced "only" to home imprisonment and his writings included in the Index
of forbidden books. Over time many popes tried to analyze the archives that
contained the documentation of the trial of Galileo, but it was with John Paul II
and with the help of the then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the former
Holy Office, the merit of having rehabilitated the figure of the scientist with a
mea culpa in the year 2000. The figure of Roberto Bellarmino, saint, is linked to
inquisitorial issues but is also the result of a specific political as well as
religious affair. Because? We recall that the canonization-sanctification of the
prelate was declared by Pius XI in 1931, also to establish and attempt
politically and religiously, in that particular historical context, that
synthesis of a system in difficulty which instead needed to regenerate itself
from the point of view of national identity as a core value of a people. In fact,
as claimed in an article by Martìn Maria Morales, in those times ("San Roberto
Bellarmino and the cancel culture", from the Archive it is linked to
inquisitorial issues but is also the result of a specific political as well as
religious affair. Because? We recall that the canonization-sanctification of the
prelate was declared by Pius XI in 1931, also to establish and attempt
politically and religiously, in that particular historical context, that
synthesis of a system in difficulty which instead needed to regenerate itself
from the point of view of national identity as a core value of a people. In fact,
as claimed in an article by Martìn Maria Morales, in those times ("San Roberto
Bellarmino and the cancel culture", from the Archive it is linked to
inquisitorial issues but is also the result of a specific political as well as
religious affair. Because? We recall that the canonization-sanctification of the
prelate was declared by Pius XI in 1931, also to establish and attempt
politically and religiously, in that particular historical context, that
synthesis of a system in difficulty which instead needed to regenerate itself
from the point of view of national identity as a core value of a people. In fact,
as claimed in an article by Martìn Maria Morales, in those times ("San Roberto
Bellarmino and the cancel culture", from the Archive also to establish and
attempt politically and religiously, in that particular historical context, that
synthesis of a system in difficulty which instead needed to regenerate itself
from the point of view of national identity as a core value of a people. In fact,
as claimed in an article by Martìn Maria Morales, in those times ("San Roberto
Bellarmino and the cancel culture", from the Archive also to establish and
attempt politically and religiously, in that particular historical context, that
synthesis of a system in difficulty which instead needed to regenerate itself
from the point of view of national identity as a core value of a people. In fact,
as claimed in an article by Martìn Maria Morales, in those times ("San Roberto
Bellarmino and the cancel culture", from the Archive

historian of the Pontifical Gregorian University, 17 September 2020) "a wind of
persecution and struggle blew from different peoples and nations against the
Church and its visible Head, the Pope, against God and his Christ: it was
blowing, in these very days , more impetuous than the earth so far celebrated for
the most Catholic, indeed the Catholic nation par excellence; and it was already
raging with so much ferocious violence and unexpected brutality that many of
those themselves, who had favored the first outbreak and promoted it, are amazed
and dismayed, without foreseeing it, the subversive impetus of society ". That
"most Catholic" nation was Spain, where monasteries and sacred statues were
burned and the Jesuit professed house in Madrid in 1931. together with the Jesuit
missionaries who died in North America; in September 1931 he finally declared him
a Doctor of the Universal Church. These particular attentions to the highest
Jesuit authority after Ignatius of Loyola, allow us to say that Pius XI, who has
been called the Pope of the Missions and the Pope of Catholic Action, must
especially be called the Pope of the Jesuits (the Missions and the Catholic
Action, moreover, are the two pupils of the eyes of the Society of Jesus)[Q.7, § 88].

Bruno was an exuberant man, very deep and unattainable, a true demon philosopher
of thought, whirlwind and intoxicating, who had allowed himself the criticism and
dialectical demolition of clerical power based on hypocrisy, corruption and even
military violence.

The story also tells us another anecdote concerning, centuries later, the
contrast between Bellarmino and the great Giordano Bruno. On the occasion of the
Lateran Pacts in 1929, the Catholics made themselves the bearers of a request
sent to Benito Mussolini, that of: "removing the statue of Giordano Bruno and
turning over that of Garibaldi who was aiming, always threatening, with his horse
towards St. Peter ". On that occasion, Mussolini extricated himself
diplomatically, ignoring the requests with a rather ambiguous answer: "I must
declare that the statue of Giordano Bruno, as melancholy as the fate of this
friar, will remain where it is. Of course it is not even a think that the
Garibaldi monument on the Janiculum could have a different location,

In 1885, therefore, a few years before Bellarmino's proclamation as saint, a
committee was formed for the construction of a monument to Giordano Bruno, in
Piazza Campo dei Fiori, "where the stake burned". Extraordinary intellectuals and
politicians of the time such as Victor Hugo, Michail Bakunin, George Ibsen,
Giovanni Bovio, Herbert Spencer and many others joined the initiative. The Roman
university students did not miss their voices, who bravely revealed themselves
with numerous demonstrations, in clashes with the police, arrests and wounded. In
1889 the statue was erected. We just have to distinguish, today, these
protagonists of our history, executioners and victims. In our view Bellarmine was
too learned and aware man not to have understood Galileo's reasons, to which he
provided a certainly milder opposition to those of the magnificent Nolan. Bruno
was an exuberant man, very deep and unattainable, a true demon-philosopher of
thought, whirling and intoxicating, who had allowed himself the criticism and
dialectical demolition of clerical power based on hypocrisy, corruption and even
military violence. The "saint" sensed its danger and greatness.

Today the "sweet and sweet" Bellarmine must be remembered as the executioner of
men and, above all, as the staunch enemy of the ideas of progress. He
distinguished himself, in his action to safeguard an absurd and always
anti-historical, anti-scientific and regressive Church on the subject of human
rights, as the one who carried out the persecution of the opponents of the Church
with all his available means.

It is worth remembering, always and constantly, that Giordano Bruno read the
sentence on February 8, 1600 that condemned him as an unrepentant, persistent and
obstinate heretic.

Nine days later he was taken to Campo de 'Fiori, Rome, where he was stripped,
tied to a stake and burned alive, while all his writings were included in the
Index of Forbidden Books, a list issued by the Catholic Church containing books
banned from read and own.
---
Taken from Il Cantiere n. September 10, 2022

Libertarian Alternative / Federation of Anarchist Communists

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Il Cantiere n. 10 Settembre 2022
Alternativa Libertaria/Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici
ilcantiere@autistici.org
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