Robert Bellarmine’s historical and theological beliefs raises concern to whether he rightly represents Bellarmine University as a Catholic institution that boasts its inclusivity and diversity.
Robert Bellarmine was a leader in the Counter-Reformation and supported the Council of Trent. In this council, the church leaders gathered to discuss which doctrines were true and which were false. The council decided in 1563 that people who did not believe in Catholic doctrine were anathematized or damned to hell for eternity.
Bellarmine University prides itself on being inclusive and diverse. However, to be named after someone who was not inclusive and diverse in his theological beliefs and who supported a document that damned other religions, raises some questions.
“I do not know the history of Robert Bellarmine himself,” Emily Michels, a staff member of the Office of Identity and Inclusion, said. “I know the school talks a lot about Thomas Merton and all those values. He was a person who was very interfaith. I'm not sure why we are named after Robert Bellarmine.”
Bellarmine University was founded in 1950 when Robert Bellarmine was recently named Doctor of the Church. Even though Robert Bellarmine was in multiple controversies with Protestant Christians, Galileo and Giordano Bruno, who was later burned at the stake as ordered by Robert Bellarmine, former Bellarmine College president, Father Alfred Fredrick Horrigan, and his colleague, Father Raymond Joseph Treece, decided to name the college after him because of his more positive traits.
“…they were drawn to the facts that the Italian cardinal was a popular professor, extravagant in his care for the poor, and a scholar known for his moderation in his voluminous writing in an angry and polemical era.” professor emeritus Father Clyde Crews wrote in his book “In Veritatis Amore.”
Crews wrote that a year before Bellarmine’s founding, Thomas Merton’s book, “The Seven Storey Mountain,” became a best-seller, causing Merton to be known on a national level.
The university has modernized its Catholic beliefs from Robert Bellarmine’s orthodox views. According to Bellarmine University's “Our Catholic Identity” document, Merton inspired leaders at Bellarmine by his value of cross-cultural and interfaith awareness and diversity and his advocacy for peace, social justice and sustainability, all of which are at the core of Bellarmine’s community values and its Catholic identity.
“We welcome all, not because they are Catholic but because we are Catholic, '' Ronald Knott, the previous director of Catholic worship at Bellarmine, said.
The university’s values are clear that the university wants to be known for being inclusive and diverse. However, Nick Meiman, a freshman at Bellarmine, said that if the values of the person the university is named after and the values of the university don’t match, then there might be a problem.
“It's kind of oxymoronic of them to think that naming the school Bellarmine is appropriate when they do not have Robert Bellarmine’s message,” Meiman said.
There is obvious dissonance within the university because the actions and values of Bellarmine represent inclusivity and diversity while the name represents a man who did not support those ideas.
Some students said they think that though Robert Bellarmine believed that people who believed in other religions would go to hell, the school should be represented by its present values.
“It is a little concerning,” Madyson Lira, a junior at Bellarmine, said. “I think mostly Bellarmine has grown into something different where all religions, every person of every different cultural group is accepted, and they can believe what they want to believe no matter who the school is named after.”
Using Robert Bellarmine’s name as the school’s name might be offensive to people at the school who believe in other religions. However, sophomore Saaki Vishnumolakala, who is also Hindu, said he does not think it is a big deal even though people might strongly believe that having Robert Bellarmine’s name is a problem. Vishnumolakala attended a Catholic high school and said that it was very similar to Bellarmine in welcoming students from all backgrounds.
“I like that they (Bellarmine University) give an option, especially for those students who are strongly religious to whatever they practice,” Vishnumolakala said. “They don't feel like they are being forced to do something they don’t want to.”
The campus ministry at Bellarmine is interfaith and exists to care for students' spiritual needs regardless of what religion they follow. Laura Kline, the director of Campus Ministry, said Robert Bellarmine was a product of his generation where everyone was trying to figure religion out. She said Bellarmine's campus ministry wants to focus on the Catholic teaching that says everyone has dignity and worth.
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