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The 15 Marks of the Catholic Church

Developed by St. Robert Bellarmine,1542-1621, Doctor of the Church and Cardinal...

1. The Church's Name, Catholic, universal, and world wide, and not confined to any particular nation or people.

2. Antiquity, in tracing her ancestry directly to Jesus Christ.

3. Constant Duration, in lasting substantially unchanged for so many centuries.

4. Extensiveness, in the number of her loyal members.

5. Episcopla Succession, of her Bishops from the first Apostles at the Last Supper to the present hierarchy.

6. Doctrinal Agreement, of her doctrine with the teaching of the ancient Church.

7. Union, of her members among themselves, and with their visible head, the Roman Pontiff.

8. Holiness, of doctrine in reflecting the sanctity of GOD.

9. Efficacy, of doctrine in its power to sanctify believers, and inspire them to great moral achievement.

10. Holiness of Life, of the Church's representative writers and defenders.

11. The glory of Miracles, worked in the Church and under the Church's auspices.

12. The gift of Prophesy found among the Church's saints and spokesmen.

13. The Opposition that the Church arouses among those who attack her on the very grounds that Christ was opposed by His enemies.

14. The Unhappy End, of those who fight against her.

15. The Temporal Peace and Earthly Happiness of those who live by the Church's teaching and defend her interests.

"12. The gift of Prophesy found among the Church's saints and spokesmen."

Here's a prophetic quote (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/praeternatural/) from St. Robert Bellarmine:

"For all catholics actually perceive antichrist to be one certain man but all the previously referenced heretics in a manner peculiar to them proprie teach antichrist not to be a single person but rather they teach the antichrist to be a single throne or tyrannical kingdom or the apostolic chair of those who preside over the catholic church

For it must be known that in the divine letters the Holy Spirit to have given as six sure signs concerning the coming of the antichrist: two which precede himself namely the preaching of the gospel in the whole world and the devastation of the Roman Empire; the contemporaneous men (2 witnesses) which it is to be seen prophesied Enoch and Elias and the greatest and last persecution and also that the public sacrifice (of the mass) shall completely cease; the two following signs surely the death if the antichrist after 3 and half years (after his rise to power) and the end of the world, none of which signs have we seen at this time. The 3rd demonstration arises from the coming of Enoch and Elias who live even now and and shall live until they come to oppose Antichrist himself and to preserve the elect in the faith of Christ and in the end shall convert the Jews and it is certain that this has not yet been fullfilled. But it is easily seen that by is truly this is not a childish fantasy but a most true concept the Enoch and Elias shall personally return and it is also seen that the contrary concept (that they will not personally return) is either absolutely heretical or a serious error very close to heretical

The sixth demonstration arises from the last sign, that follows antichrist which shall be the consummation of the world. After antichrist at once comes the last Judgement…the future reign of antichrist shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days duration. Mat 24 “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to the whole world and then shall come the consummation (of the world). That is a little after antichrist shall come the end of the world "

From a treatise On the Ascent of the Mind to God by

Saint Robert Bellarmine, Bishop and Doctor
(1542-1621)

Incline my heart to your decrees

   Sweet Lord, you are meek and merciful. Who would not give himself wholeheartedly to your service, if he began to taste even a little of your fatherly rule? What command, Lord, do you give your servants? Take my yoke upon you, you say. And what is this yoke of yours like? My yoke, you say, is easy and my burden light. Who would not be glad to bear a yoke that does not press hard but caresses? Who would not be glad for a burden that does not weigh heavy but refreshes? And so you were right to add: And you will find rest for you souls. And what is this yoke of yours that does not weary, but gives rest? It is, of course, that first and greatest commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. What is easier, sweeter, more pleasant, that to love goodness, beauty and love, the fullness of which you are, O Lord, my God?
     Is it not true that you promise those who keep your commandments a reward more desirable than great wealth and sweeter than honey? You promise a most abundant reward, for as your apostle James says: The Lord has prepared a crown of life for those who love him. What is this crown of life? It is surely a greater good than we can conceive of or desire, as Saint Paul says, quoting Isaiah: Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love him.
     Truly then the recompense is great for those who keep your commandments. That first and greatest commandment helps the man who obeys, not the God who commands. In addition, the other commandments of God perfect the man who obeys them. They provide him with what he needs. They instruct and enlighten him and make him good and blessed. If you are wise, then, know that you have been created for the glory of God and your own eternal salvation. This is your goal; this is the center of your life; this is the treasure of your heart. If you reach this goal, you will find happiness. If you fail to reach it, you will find misery.
     May you consider truly good whatever leads to your goal and truly evil whatever makes you fall away from it. Prosperity and adversity, wealth and poverty, health and sickness, honors and humiliations, life and death, in the mind of the wise man, are not to be sought for their own sake, nor avoided for their own sake. But if they contribute to the glory of God and your eternal happiness, then they are good and should be sought. If they detract from this, they are evil and must be avoided.

Source: The Liturgy of the Hours - Office of Readings
Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) was born in 1542 in the town of Monte Pulciano in Tuscany. He entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and studied at Florence and Mondovi and then at Padua and Louvain. After ordination to the priesthood in 1570 he distinguished himself by brilliant disputations in defense of the Catholic faith. He also taught theology in the Roman College in Louvain, lecturing on St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica and gained a reputation for his learning and brilliant preaching. He studied Scripture and the Church Fathers and learned Hebrew. In 1576 he was called to Rome and taught at the newly founded Roman College for eleven years, during which time he prepared his monumental Disputationes de controversiis Christianae Fidei adversus hujus temporis Haereticos, a study of the Catholic faith to refute the Protestant Centuries of Magdeburg. In 1592 he was named rector of the Roman College and in 1594 became provincial of the Naples province of the Jesuits. He became Pope Clement VIII's theologian in 1597 and in 1599 was elected to the College of Cardinals and named bishop of Capua. He became embroiled in the controversy over his friend Galileo, who accepted his admonition in 1610 that it would be wise to advance his findings as hypotheses rather than as fully proved theories. In the last decade of his life his writings were on spiritual matters, among them Art of Dying Well. He solved many pressing questions in the various Roman Congregations, was a champion of the papacy and brilliant defender of the faith in the wake of the Protestant reformation. He died at Rome in 1621 at age 79, was canonized in 1930 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931.