CAPG's Blog 

Saint Robert Bellarmine

"Today, therefore, if some are called "Martinists," or Lutherans, some Zwinglians, orthers Calvinists, etc, yet no one ever called us after some man, it is certain that ours is the true Church." St. Robert Bellarmine

"It is granted to few to recognize the true Church amid the darkness of so many schisms and heresies, and to fewer still so to love the truth which they have seens as to fly to its embrace."

Quotes:

"As to their alleged prophecy of Rome's downfall, he said that he preferred to believe another one which ran, Upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."

"Preachers who are anxious to do their duty [he said on one occasion] must not suffer themselves to be frightened away from wholesome teaching, merely because by delivering it they may make enemies among their flock. He is but a sad and sorry evangelist who seeks his own and not God's glory, and desires to be loved and praised by the people, instead of bengin all his energies to make God loved and praised by them. much better would it be for him to plough in the fields or beg his bread, than preach - aratorem potius quam oratorem agere. Suppose a devoted husband, who is on a journey, sends his wife some little gift or token by a messenger, and the fellow uses it to ingratiate himself with the lady, would we not rightly account him a scoundrel, and adulterer at heart? Tell me now, if Christ the Heavenly Spouse of Holy Church sends her a message through a preacher, and he, instead of delivering it faithfully, tries to appear a grand fellow on account of his commission, and uses the very Scriptures themselves to show off his eloquance and win the world's applause - tell me, I say, what better is he in the eyes of God than an adulterer?

"If a man only understood the reverence due to God's holy Name he would choose gladly to have his two lips stitched together rather than utter it in vain." 

"The sins of his people and, above all the sins of priests, weighed like a great burden on this perfect priest's heart.

What will become of them [he asked], those sad traitors who sell Christ daily for less than Judas did, for a woman's kiss, or a dance, or a cup of wine? When celebrating the tremendous mystery of the Mass, a priest knows right well that he is in the Holy of Holies, surrounded by choirs of adoring angels who tremble with awe. Think, then, what a matter for tears it is, to see one so placed, cold and inattentive, and in such a hurry that it looks as if he though there was a band of robbers on his track. We all proclaim to the world that Christ Himself is present in the Sacrament of the Altar, and still some of us act, when wwe have Him in our hands, as though there was nothing we believed less, or as if we held a God of metal or stone, who could neither hear, nor see, nor feel... We place Him - the Lord of Glory, whose Name the angels hardly dare to breathe - on a corporal which we should blush to see spread on a servants' table, while His altars are defiled with dust and given over to spiders as a grand place where they can weve their webs undisturbed and hunt flied contentedly... I could tolerate many other abuses, which I shall not mention, of only the corporals and purificators were kept clean, and I beg and implore all good priests, zealous for the honor of Our Lord, to admonish and punish unsparingly those contemners of His Divine Majesty." The Life and Work of Blessed Robert Francis Cardinal Bellarmine by Fr. James Brodrick Sj. 1928