(Kannees, Kanys, probably also De Hondt).
Born at Nimwegen in the Netherlands, 8 May, 1521; died in
Fribourg, 21 November, 1597. His father was the wealthy burgomaster,
Jacob Canisius; his mother, Ægidia van Houweningen, died shortly after
Peter's birth. In 1536 Peter was sent to Cologne, where he studied arts,
civil law, and theology at the university; he spent a part of 1539 at
the University of Louvain, and in 1540 received the degree of Master of
Arts at Cologne. Nicolaus van Esche was his spiritual adviser, and he
was on terms of friendship with such staunch Catholics as Georg of
Skodborg (the expelled Archbishop of Lund), Johann Gropper (canon of the
cathedral), Eberhard Billick (the Carmelite monk), Justus Lanspergius,
and other Carthusian monks. Although his father desired him to marry a
wealthy young woman, on 25 February, 1540 he pledged himself to
celibacy. In 1543 he visited Peter Faber and, having made the "Spiritual
Exercises" under his direction, was admitted into the Society of Jesus
at Mainz, on 8 May. With the help of Leonhard Kessel and others,
Canisius, labouring under great difficulties, founded at Cologne the
first German house of the order; at the same time he preached in the
city and vicinity, and debated and taught in the university. In 1546 he
was admitted to the priesthood, and soon afterwards was sent by the
clergy and university to obtain assistance from Emperor Charles V, the
nuncio, and the clergy of Liège against the apostate Archbishop, Hermann
von Wied, who had attempted to pervert the diocese. In 1547, as the
theologian of Cardinal Otto Truchsess von Waldburg, Bishop of Augsburg,
he participated in the general ecclesiastical council (which sat first
at Trent and then at Bologna), and spoke twice in the congregation of
the theologians. After this he spent several months under the direction
of Ignatius in Rome. In 1548 he taught rhetoric at Messina, Sicily,
preaching in Italian and Latin. At this time Duke William IV of Bavaria
requested Paul III to send him some professors from the Society of Jesus
for the University of Ingolstadt; Canisius was among those selected.
On 7 September, 1549, he made his solemn profession as Jesuit at
Rome, in the presence of the founder of the order. On his journey
northward he received, at Bologna, the degree of doctor of theology. On
13 November, accompanied by Fathers Jaius and Salmeron, he reached
Ingolstadt, where he taught theology, catechized, and preached. In 1550
he was elected rector of the university, and in 1552 was sent by
Ignatius to the new college in Vienna; there he also taught theology in
the university, preached at the Cathedral of St. Stephen, and at the
court of Ferdinand I, and was confessor at the hospital and prison.
During Lent, 1553 he visited many abandoned parishes in Lower Austria,
preaching and administering the sacraments. The king's eldest son (later
Maximilian II) had appointed to the office of court preacher, Phauser, a
married priest, who preached the Lutheran doctrine. Canisius warned
Ferdinand I, verbally and in writing, and opposed Phauser in public
disputations. Maximilian was obliged to dismiss Phauser and, on this
account, the rest of his life he harboured a grudge against Canisius.
Ferdinand three times offered him the Bishopric of Vienna, but he
refused. In 1557 Julius III appointed him administrator of the bishopric
for one year, but Canisius succeeded in ridding himself of this burden
(cf. N. Paulus in "Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie", XXII, 742-8).
In 1555 he was present at the Diet of Augsburg with Ferdinand, and in
1555-56 he preached in the cathedral of Prague. After long negotiations
and preparations he was able to open Jesuit colleges at Ingolstadt and
Prague. In the same year Ignatius appointed him first provincial
superior of Upper Germany (Swabia, Bavaria, Bohemia, Hungary, Lower and
Upper Austria). During the winter of 1556-57 he acted as adviser to the
King of the Romans at the Diet of Ratisbon and delivered many sermons in
the cathedral. By the appointment of the Catholic princes and the order
of the pope he took part in the religious discussions at Worms. As
champion of the Catholics he repeatedly spoke in opposition to
Melanchthon. The fact that the Protestants disagreed among themselves
and were obliged to leave the field was due in a great measure to
Canisius. He also preached in the cathedral of Worms.
During Advent and Christmas he visited the Bishop of Strasburg at
Zabern, started negotiations for the building of a Jesuit college
there, preached, explained the catechism to the children, and heard
their confessions. He also preached in the cathedral of Strasburg and
strengthened the Catholics of Alsace and Freiburg in their faith.
Ferdinand, on his way to Frankfort to be proclaimed emperor, met him at
Nuremburg and confided his troubles to him. Then Duke Albert V of
Bavaria secured his services; at Straubing the pastors and preachers had
fled, after having persuaded the people to turn from the Catholic
faith. Canisius remained in the town for six weeks, preaching three or
four times a day, and by his gentleness he undid much harm. From
Straubing he was called to Rome to be present at the First General
Congregation of his order, but before its close Paul IV sent him with
the nuncio Mentuati to Poland to the imperial Diet of Pieterkow; at
Cracow he addressed the clergy and members of the university. In the
year 1559 he was summoned by the emperor to be present at the Diet of
Augsburg. There, at the urgent request of the chapter, he became
preacher at the cathedral and held this position until 1566. His
manuscripts show the care with which he wrote his sermons. In a series
of sermons he treats of the end of man, of the Decalogue, the Mass, the
prophecies of Jonas; at the same time he rarely omitted to expound the
Gospel of the day; he spoke in keeping with the spirit of the age,
explained the justification of man, Christian liberty, the proper way of
interpreting the Scriptures, defended the worship of saints, the
ceremonies of the Church, religious vows, indulgences. urged obedience
to the Church authorities, confession, communion, fasting, and
almsgiving; he censured the faults of the clergy, at times perhaps too
sharply, as he felt that they were public and that he must avoid
demanding reformation from the laity only. Against the influence of evil
spirits he recommended the means of defence which had been in use in
the Church during the first centuries-lively faith, prayer,
ecclesiastical benedictions, and acts of penance. From 1561-62 he
preached about two hundred and ten sermons, besides giving retreats and
teaching catechism. In the cathedral, his confessional and the altar at
which he said Mass were surrounded by crowds, and alms were placed on
the altar. The envy of some of the cathedral clergy was aroused, and
Canisius and his companions were accused of usurping the parochial
rights. The pope and bishop favoured the Jesuits, but the majority of
the chapter opposed them. Canisius was obliged to sign an agreement
according to which he retained the pulpit but gave up the right of
administering the sacraments in the cathedral.
In 1559 he opened a college in Munich; in 1562 he appeared at
Trent as papal theologian. The council was discussing the question
whether communion should be administered under both forms to those of
the laity who asked for it. Lainez, the general of the Society of Jesus,
opposed it unconditionally. Canisius held that the cup might be
administered to the Bohemians and to some Catholics whose faith was not
very firm. After one month he departed from Trent, but he continued to
support the work of the Fathers by urging the bishops to appear at the
council, by giving expert opinion regarding the Index and other matters,
by reports on the state of public opinion, and on newly-published
books. In the spring of 1563 he rendered a specially important service
to the Church; the emperor had come to Innsbruck (near Trent), and had
summoned thither several scholars, including Canisius, as advisers. Some
of these men fomented the displeasure of the emperor with the pope and
the cardinals who presided over the council. For months Canisius strove
to reconcile him with the Curia. He has been blamed unjustly for
communicating to his general and to the pope's representatives some of
Ferdinand's plans, which otherwise might have ended contrary to the
intention of all concerned in the dissolution of the council and in a
new national apostasy. The emperor finally granted all the pope's
demands and the council was able to proceed and to end peacefully. All
Rome praised Canisius, but soon after he lost favour with Ferdinand and
was denounced as disloyal; at this time he also changed his views
regarding the giving of the cup to the laity (in which the emperor saw a
means of relieving all his difficulties), saying that such a concession
would only tend to confuse faithful Catholics and to encourage the
disobedience of the recalcitrant.
In 1562 the College of Innsbruck was opened by Canisius, and at
that time he acted as confessor to the "Queen" Magdalena (declared
Venerable in 1906 by Pius X; daughter of Ferdinand I, who lived with her
four sisters at Innsbruck), and as spiritual adviser to her sisters. At
their request he sent them a confessor from the society, and, when
Magdalena presided over the convent, which she had founded at Hall, he
sent her complete directions for attaining Christian perfection. In 1563
he preached at many monasteries in Swabia; in 1564 he sent the first
missionaries to Lower Bavaria, and recommended the provincial synod of
Salzburg not to allow the cup to the laity, as it had authority to do;
his advice, however, was not accepted. In this year Canisius opened a
college at Dillingen and assumed, in the name of the order, the
administration of the university which had been founded there by
Cardinal Truchsess. In 1565 he took part in the Second General
Congregation of the order in Rome. While in Rome he visited Philip, son
of the Protestant philologist Joachim Camerarius, at that time a
prisoner of the Inquisition, and instructed and consoled him. Pius IV
sent him as his secret nuncio to deliver the decrees of the Council of
Trent to Germany; the pope also commissioned him to urge their
enforcement, to ask the Catholic princes to defend the Church at the
coming diet, and to negotiate for the founding of colleges and
seminaries. Canisius negotiated more or less successfully with the
Electors of Mainz and Trier, with the bishops of Augsburg, Würzburg,
Osnabrück, Münster, and Paderborn, with the Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg,
and with the City and University of Cologne; he also visited Nimwegen,
preaching there and at other places; his mission, however, was
interrupted by the death of the pope. Pius V desired its continuation,
but Canisius requested to be relieved; he said that it aroused
suspicions of espionage, of arrogance, and of interference in politics
(for a detailed account of his mission see "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach",
LXXI, 58, 164, 301).
At the Diet of Augsburg (1566), Canisius and other theologians,
by order of the pope, gave their services to the cardinal legate
Commendone; with the help of his friends he succeeded, although with
great difficulty, in persuading the legate not to issue his protest
against the religious peace, and thus prevented a new fratricidal war.
The Catholic members of the diet accepted the decrees of the council,
the designs of the Protestants were frustrated, and from that time a new
and vigorous life began for the Catholics in Germany. In the same year
Canisius went to Wiesensteig, where he visited and brought back to the
Church the Lutheran Count of Helfenstein and his entire countship, and
where he prepared for death two witches who had been abandoned by the
Lutheran preachers. In 1567 he preached the Lenten sermons in the
cathedral of Würzburg, gave instruction in the Franciscan church twice a
week to the children and domestics of the town, and discussed the
foundling of a Jesuit college at Würzburg with the bishop. Then followed
the diocesan synod of Dillingen (at which Canisius was principal
adviser of the Bishop of Augsburg), journeys to Würzburg, Mainz, Speyer,
and a visit to the Bishop of Strasburg, whom he advised, though
unsuccessfully, to take a coadjutor. At Dillingen he received the
application of Stanislaus Kostka to enter the Society af Jesus, and sent
him with hearty recommendations to the general of the order at Rome. At
this time he successfully settled a dispute in the philosophical
faculty of the University of Ingolstadt. In 1567 and 1568 he went
several times to Innsbruck, where in the name of the general he
consulted with the Archduke Ferdinand II and his sisters about the
confessors of the archduchesses and about the establishment of a Jesuit
house at Hall. In 1569 the general decided to accept the college at
Hall.
During Lent of 1568 Canisius preached at Ellwangen, in
Würtemberg; from there he went with Cardinal Truchsess to Rome. The
Upper German province of the order had elected the provincial as its
representative at the meeting of the procurators; this election was
illegal, but Canisius was admitted. For months he collected in the
libraries of Rome material for a great work which he was preparing. In
1569 he returned to Augsburg and preached Lenten sermons in the Church
of St. Mauritius. Having been a provincial for thirteen years (an
unusually long time) he was relieved of the office at his own request,
and went to Dillingen, where he wrote, catechized, and heard
confessions, his respite, however, was short; in 1570 he was obliged
again to go to Augsburg. A year latter he was compelled to move to
Innsbruck and to accept the office of court preacher to Archduke
Ferdinand II. In 1575 Gregory XIII sent him with papal messages to the
archduke and to the Duke of Bavaria. When he arrived in Rome to make his
report, the Third General Congregation of the order was assembled and,
by special favour, Canisius was invited to be present. From this time he
was preacher in the parish church of Innsbruck until the Diet of
Ratisbon (1576), which he attended as theologian of the cardinal legate
Morone. In the following year he supervised at Ingolstadt the printing
of an important work, and induced the students of the university to
found a sodality of the Blessed Virgin. During Lent, 1578, he preached
at the court of Duke William of Bavaria at Landshut. The nuncio
Bonhomini desired to have a college of the society at Fribourg; the
order at first refused on account of the lack of men, but the pope
intervened and, at the end of 1580, Canisius laid the foundation stone.
In 1581 he founded a sodality of the Blessed Virgin among the citizens
and, soon afterwards, sodalities for women and students; in 1582 schools
were opened, and he preached in the parish church and in other places
until 1589.
The canton had not been left uninfluenced by the Protestant
movement. Canisius worked indefatigably with the provost Peter Schnewly,
the Franciscan Johannes Michel, and others, for the revival of
religious sentiments amongst the people; since then Fribourg has
remained a stronghold of the Catholic Church. In 1584, while on the way
to take part in another meeting of the order at Augsburg, he preached at
Lucerne and made a pilgrimage to the miraculous image of the Blessed
Virgin at Einsiedeln. According to his own account, it was then that St.
Nicholas, the patron saint of Fribourg, made known to him his desire
that Canisius should not leave Fribourg again. Many times the superiors
of the order planned to transfer him to another house, but the nuncio,
the city council, and the citizens themselves opposed the measure; they
would not consent to lose this celebrated and saintly man. The last
years of his life he devoted to the instruction of converts, to making
spiritual addresses to the brothers of the order, to writing and
re-editing books. The city authorities ordered his body to be buried
before the high altar of the principal church, the Church of St.
Nicolaus, from which they were translated in 1625 to that of St.
Michael, the church of the Jesuit College.
Canisius held that to defend the Catholic truths with the pen was
just as important as to convert the Hindus. At Rome and Trent he
strongly urged the appointment at the council, at the papal court, and
in other parts of Italy, of able theologians to write in defence of the
Catholic faith. He begged Pius V to send yearly subsidies to the
Catholic printers of Germany, and to permit German scholars to edit
Roman manuscripts; he induced the city council of Fribourg to erect a
printing establishment, and he secured special privileges for printers.
He also kept in touch with the chief Catholic printers of his
time-Plantin of Antwerp, Cholin of Cologne, and Mayer of Dillingen-and
had foreign works of importance reprinted in Germany, for example, the
works of Andrada, Fontidonio, and Villalpando in defence of the Council
of Trent.
Canisius advised the generals of the order to create a college of
authors; urged scholars like Bartholomæus Latomus, Friedrich Staphylus,
and Hieronymus Torensis to publish their works; assisted Onofrio
Panvinio and the polemic Stanislaus Hosius, reading their manuscripts
and correcting proofs; and contributed to the work of his friend Surius
on the councils. At his solicitation the "Briefe aus Indien", the first
relations of Catholic missioners, were published (Dillingen, 1563-71);
"Canisius", wrote the Protestant preacher, Witz, "by this activity gave
an impulse which deserves our undivided recognition, indeed which
arouses our admiration" ("Petrus Canisius", Vienna, 1897, p. 12).
The latest bibliography of the Society of Jesus devotes
thirty-eight quarto pages to a list of the works published by Canisius
and their different editions, and it must be added that this list is
incomplete. The most important of his works are described below; the
asterisk signifies that the work bears the name of Canisius neither on
the title page nor in the preface. His chief work is his triple
"Catechism". In 1551 King Ferdinand I asked the University of Vienna to
write a compendium of Christian doctrine, and Canisius wrote (Vienna,
1555), at first for advanced students, his "Summa doctrinæ christianæ . .
. in usum Christianæ pueritiæ", two hundred and eleven questions in
five chapters (the first edition appeared without the name of the
author, but later all three catechisms bore his name); then a short
extract for school children, "Summa . . . ad captum rudiorum
accommodata" (Ingolstadt, 1556), was published as an appendix to the
"Principia Grammatices"; his catechism for students of the lower and
middle grades, "Parvus Catechismus Catholicorum" (later known as
"Institutiones christianæ pietatis" or "Catechismus catholicus"), is an
extract from the larger catechism, written in the winter of 1557-58. Of
the first Latin edition (Cologne, 1558), no copy is known to exist; the
German edition appeared at Dillingen, 1560. The "Summa" only received
its definite form in the Cologne edition of 1556; it contains two
hundred and twenty-two questions, and two thousand quotations from the
Scriptures, and about twelve hundred quotations from the Fathers of the
Church are inscribed on the margins; later all these quotations were
compiled in the original by Peter Busæus, S.J., and appeared in four
quarto volumes under the title "Authoritates Sacræ Scripturæ et
Sanctorum patrum" etc. (Cologne, 1569-70); in 1557 Johannes Hasius,
S.J., published the same work in one large folio volume, entitled "Opus
catechisticum", for which Canisius wrote an introduction. The catechism
of Canisius is remarkable for its ecclesiastically correct teachings,
its clear, positive sentences, its mild and dignified form. It is today
recognized as a masterpiece even by non-Catholics, e.g., the historians
Ranke, Menzel, Philippson, and the theologians Kawerau, Rouffet,
Zerschwitz.
Pius V entrusted Canisius with the confutation of the
Centuriators of Magdeburg. Canisius undertook to prove the dishonesty of
the centuriators by exposing their treatment of the principal persons
in the Gospel-John the Baptist, the Mother of God, the Apostle St.
Peter-and published (Dillingen, 1571) his next most important work,
"Commentariorum de Verbi Dei corruptelis liber primus: in quo de
Sanctissimi Præcursoris Domini Joannis Baptistæ Historia Evangelica . . .
pertractatur". Here the confutation of the principal errors of
Protestantism is exegetical and historical rather than scholastical; in
1577 "De Maria Virgine incomparabili, et Dei Genitrice sacrosancta,
libri quinque" was published at Ingolstadt. Later he united these two
works into one book of two volumes, "Commentariorum de Verbi
corruptelis" (Ingolstadt, 1583, and later Paris and Lyons); the treatise
on St. Peter and his primacy was only begun; the work on the Virgin
Mary contains some quotations from the Fathers of the Church that had
not been printed previously, and treats of the worship of Mary by the
Church. A celebrated theologian of the present day called this work a
classic defence of the whole Catholic doctrine about the Blessed Virgin
(Scheeben, "Dogmatik", III, 478); in 1543 he published (under the name
of Petrus Nouiomagus) "Des erleuchten D. Johannis Tauleri, von eym waren
Euangelischen leben, Göttliche Predig. Leren" etc., in which several
writings of the Dominican mystic appear in print for the first time.
This was the first book published by a Jesuit. "Divi Cyrilli
archiepiscopi Alexandrini Opera" (Latin translation, 2 fol. vols.,
Cologne, 1546); "D. Leonis Papæ huius nominis primi . . . Opera"
(Cologne, 1546, later reprinted at Venice, Louvain, and Cologne), Leo is
brought forward as a witness for the Catholic teachings and the
discipline of the Church against the innovators; "De consolandis
ægrotis" (Vienna, 1554), exhortations (Latin, German, and Italian) and
prayers, with a preface by Canisius; "Lectiones et Precationes
Ecclesiasticæ" (Ingolstadt, 1556), a prayerbook for students, reprinted
more than thirty times under the titles of "Epistolæ et Evangelia" etc.;
*"Principia grammatices" (Ingolstadt, 1556); Hannibal Codrett's Latin
Grammar, adapted for German students by Canisius, reprinted in 1561,
1564 and 1568; *"Ordnung der Letaney von vnser lieben Frawen" [Dillingen
(1558)], the first known printing of the Litany of Loreto, the second
(Macerata, 1576) was most probably arranged by Canisius; *"Vom abschiedt
des Coloquij zu Wormbs" (s. l. a., 1558?).
- "Ain Christlicher Bericht, was die hailige Christliche Kirch . .
. sey" (Dillingen, 1559), translation and preface by Canisius (cf. N.
Paulus in "Historischpolit. Blätter", CXXI, 765); "Epistolæ B. Hieronymi
. . . selectæ" (Dillingen, 1562), a school edition arranged and
prefaced by, Canisius and later reprinted about forty times; *"Hortulus
Animæ" (q.v.), a German prayer-book arranged by Canisius (Dillingen,
1563), reprinted later, probably published also in Latin by him. The
"Hortuli" were placed later on the Index nisi corrigantur; *"Von
der Gesellschaft Jesu Durch. Joannem Albertum Wimpinensem" (Ingolstadt,
1563), a defence of the order against Chemnitz and Zanger, the greater
part of which was written by Canisius; "Institutiones, et Exercitamentas
Christianæ Pietatis" (Antwerp, 1566), many times reprinted, in which
Canisius combined the catechism for the middle grades and the "Lectiones
et Precationes ecclesiasticæ" (revised in Rome); "Beicht und
Communionbüchlein" [Dillingen, 1567 (?), 1575, 1579, 1582, 1603;
Ingolstadt, 1594, etc.]; "Christenliche . . . Predig von den vier
Sontagen im Aduent, auch vonn dem heiligen Christag" (Dillingen, 1570).
At the request of Ferdinand II of Tyrol, Canisius supervised the
publishing of *"Von dem hoch vnd weitberhümpten Wunderzeichen, so sich .
. . auff dem Seefeld . . . zugetragen" (Dillingen, 1580), and wrote a
long preface for it; then appeared "Zwey vnd neuntzig Betrachtung vnd
Gebett, dess . . . Bruders Clausen von Vnterwalden" (Fribourg, 1586);
"Manuale Catholicorum. In usum pie precandi" (Fribourg, 1587); "Zwo . . .
Historien . . . Die erste von . . . S. Beato, ersten Prediger in
Schweitzerland. Die andere von . . . S. Fridolino, ersten Prediger zu
Glaris vnd Seckingen" (Fribourg, 1590): in this, the first of the
popular biographies of the saints especially worshipped in Switzerland,
Canisius does not give a scholarly essay, but endeavours to strengthen
the Catholic Swiss in their faith and arouse their piety; "Notæ in
Evangelicas lectiones, quæ per totum annum Dominicis diebus . . .
recitantur (Fribourg, 1591), a large quarto volume valuable for sermons
and meditations for the clergy; "Miserere, das ist: Der 50. Psalm Davids
. . . Gebettsweiss . . . aussgelegt" (Munich, 1594, Ingolstadt, 1594);
"Warhafte Histori . . . Von Sanct Moritzen . . . vnd seiner Thebaischen
Legion . . . Auch insonderheit von Sanct Vrso" (Fribourg, 1594);
*"Catholische Kirchengesäng zum theil vor vnd nach dem Catechismo zum
teil sonst durchs Jahr . . . zusingen" (Fribourg, 1596); "Enchiridion
Pietatis quo ad precandum Deum instruitur Princeps" (s. l., 1751),
dedicated by Canisius in 1592 to the future emperor Ferdinand II
(Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie; XIV, 741); "Beati Petri Canisii
Exhortationes domesticæ", mostly short sketches, collected and edited by
G. Schlosser, S.J. (Roermond, 1876); "Beati Petri Canisii Epistulæ et
Acta": 1541-65, edited by O. Braunsberger, S.J. (4 vols., Freiburg im
Br., 1896-1905). There still remain unpublished four or five volumes
containing eleven hundred and ninety-five letters and
regesta written to or by Canisius, and six hundred and twenty-five documents dealing with his labours.
"Peter Canisius", says the Protestant professor of theology,
Krüger, "was a noble Jesuit; no blemish stains his character" ("Petrus
Canisius" in "Geschichte u. Legende", Giessen, 1898, 10). The principal
trait of his character was love for Christ and for his work; he devoted
his life to defend, propagate, and strengthen the Church. Hence his
devotion to the pope. He did not deny the abuses which existed in Rome;
he demanded speedy remedies; but the supreme and full power of the pope
over the whole Church, and the infallibility of his teaching as Head of
the Church, Canisius championed as vigorously as the Italian and Spanish
brothers of the order. He cannot be called an "Episcopalian" or
"Semi-Gallican"; his motto was "whoever adheres to the Chair of St.
Peter is my man. With Ambrose I desire to follow the Church of Rome in
every respect". PIus V wished to make him cardinal. The bishops, Brendel
of Mains, Brus of Prague, Pflug of Naumburg, Blarer of Basle, Cromer of
Ermland, and Spaur of Brixen, held him in great esteem. St. Francis of
Sales sought his advice by letter. He enjoyed the friendship of the most
distinguished members of the College of Cardinals-Borromeo, Hosius,
Truchsess, Commendone, Morone, Sirlet; of the nuncios Delfino, Portia,
Bonhomini and others; of many leading exponents of ecclesiastical
learning; and of such prominent men as the Chancellor of the University
of Louvain, Ruard Tapper, the provost Martin Eisengrein, Friedrich
Staphylus, Franz Sonnius, Martin Rithovius, Wilhelm Lindanus, the
imperial vice-chancellors Jacob Jonas and Georg Sigismund Seld, the
Bavarian chancellor Simon Thaddaeus Eck, and the Fuggers and Welsers of
Augsburg. "Canisius's whole life", writes the Swiss Protestant
theologian Gautier, "is animated by the desire to form a generation of
devout clerics capable of serving the Church worthily" ("Etude sur la
correspondance de Pierre Canisius", Geneva, 1905, p. 46). At Ingolstadt
he held disputations and homiletic exercises among the young clerics,
and endeavoured to raise the religious and scientific standard of the
Georgianum. He collected for and sent pupils to the German College at
Rome and provided for pupils who had returned home. He also urged
Gregory XIII to make donations and to found similar institutious in
Germany; soon papal seminaries were built at Prague, Fulda, Braunsberg,
and Dillingen. At Ingolstadt, Innsbruck, Munich, and Vienna schools were
built under the guidance of Canisius for the nobility and the poor, the
former to educate the clergy of the cathedrals, the latter for the
clergy of the lower grades. The reformed ordinances published at that
time for the Universities of Cologne, Ingolstadt, and Vienna must be
credited in the main to his suggestions.
With apostolic zeal he loved the Society of Jesus; the day of his
admission to the order he called his second birthday. Obedience to his
superiors was his first rule. As a superior he cared with parental love
for the necessities of his subordinates. Shortly before his death he
declared that he had never regretted becoming a Jesuit, and recalled the
abuses which the opponents of the Church had heaped upon his order and
his person. Johann Wigand wrote a vile pamphlet against his "Catechism";
Flacius Illyricus, Johann Gnypheus, and Paul Scheidlich wrote books
against it; Melanchthon declared that he defended errors wilfully;
Chemnitz called him a cynic; the satirist Fischart scoffed at him;
Andreæ Dathen, Gallus, Hesshusen, Osiander, Platzius, Roding, Vergerio,
and others wrote vigorous attacks against him; at Prague the Hussites
threw stones into the church where he was saying Mass; at Berne he was
derided by a Protestant mob. At Easter, 1568, he was obliged to preach
in the Cathedral of Würzburg in order to disprove the rumour that he had
become a Protestant. Unembittered by all this, he said, "the more our
opponents calumniate us, the more we must love them". He requested
Catholic authors to advocate the truth with modesty and dignity without
scoffing or ridicule. The names of Luther and Melanchthon were never
mentioned in his "Catechism". His love for the German people is
characteristic; he urged the brothers of the order to practise German
diligently, and he liked to hear the German national hymns sung. At his
desire St. Ignatius decreed that all the members of the order should
offer monthly Masses and prayers for the welfare of Germany and the
North. Ever the faithful advocate of the Germans at the Holy See, he
obtained clemency for them in questions of ecclesiastical censures, and
permission to give extraordinary absolutions and to dispense from the
law of fasting. He also wished the Index to be modified that German
confessors might be authorized to permit the reading of some books, but
in his sermons he warned the faithful to abstain from reading such books
without permission. While he was rector of the University of
Ingolstadt, a resolution was passed forbidding the use of Protestant
textbooks and, at his request, the Duke of Bavaria forbade the
importation of books opposed to religion and morals. At Cologne he
requested the town council to forbid the printing or sale of books
hostile to the Faith or immoral, and in the Tyrol had Archduke Ferdinand
II suppress such books. He also advised Bishop Urban of Gurk, the court
preacher of Ferdinand I, not to read so many Protestant books, but to
study instead the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers. At
Nimwegen he searched the libraries of his friends, and burned all
heretical books. In the midst of all these cares Canisius remained
essentially a man of prayer; he was an ardent advocate of the Rosary and
its sodalities. He was also one of the precursors of the modern
devotion of the Sacred Heart.
During his lifetime his "Catechism" appeared in more than 200
editions in at least twelve languages. It was one of the works which
influenced St. Aloysius Gonzaga to enter the Society of Jesus; it
converted, among others, Count Palatine Wolfgang Wilhelm of Neuburg; and
as late as the eighteenth century in many places the words "Canisi" and
catechism were synonymous. It remained the foundation and pattern for
the catechisms printed later. His preaching also had great influence; in
1560 the clergy of the cathedral of Augsburg testified that by his
sermons nine hundred persons had been brought back to the Church, and in
May, 1562, it was reported the Easter communicants numbered one
thousand more than in former years. Canisius induced some of the
prominent Fuggers to return to the Church, and converted the leader of
the Augsburg Anabaptists. In 1537 the Catholic clergy had been banished
from Augsburg by the city council; but after the preaching of Canisius
public processions were held, monasteries gained novices, people crowded
to the jubilee indulgence, pilgrimages were revived, and frequent
Communion again became the rule. After the elections of 1562 there were
eighteen Protestants and twenty-seven Catholics on the city council. He
received the approbation of Pius IV by a special Brief in 1561. Great
services were rendered by Canisius to the Church through the extension
of the Society of Jesus; the difficulties were great: lack of novices,
insufficient education of some of the younger members, poverty, plague,
animosity of the Protestants, jealousy on the part of fellow-Catholics,
the interference of princes and city councils. Notwithstanding all this,
Canisius introduced the order into Bavaria, Bohemia, Swabia, the Tyrol,
and Hungary, and prepared the way in Alsace, the Palatinate, Hesse, and
Poland. Even opponents admit that to the Jesuits principally is due the
credit of saving a large part of Germany from religious innovation. In
this work Canisius was the leader. In many respects Canisius was the
product of an age which believed in strange miracles, put witches to
death, and had recourse to force against the adherents of another faith;
but notwithstanding all this, Johannes Janssen does not hesitate to
declare that Canisius was the most prominent and most influential
Catholic reformer of the sixteenth century (Geschichte des deutschen
Volkes, 15th and 16th editions, IV, p. 406). "Canisius more than any
other man", writes A. Chroust, "saved for the Church of Rome the
Catholic Germany of to-day" (Deutsche Zeitschrift für
Geschichtswissenschaft, new series, II, 106). It has often been declared
that Canisius in many ways resembles St. Boniface, and he is therefore
called the second Apostle of Germany. The Protestant professor of
theology, Paul Drews, says: "It must be admitted that, from the
standpoint of Rome, he deserves the title of Apostle of Germany"
("Petrus Canisius", Halle, 1892, p. 103).
Soon after his death reports spread of the miraculous help
obtained by invoking his name. His tomb was visited by pilgrims. The
Society of Jesus decided to urge his beatification. The ecclesiastical
investigations of his virtues and miracles were at first conducted by
the Bishops of Fribourg, Dillingen, and Freising (1625-90); the
apostolic proceedings began in 1734, but were interrupted by political
and religions disorders. Gregory XVI resumed them about 1833; Pius IX on
17 April, 1864, approved of four of the miracles submitted, and on 20
November, 1869, the solemn beatification took place in St. Peter's at
Rome. In connection with this, there appeared between 1864-66 more than
thirty different biographies. On the occasion of the tercentenary of his
death, Leo XIII issued to the bishops of Austria, Germany, and
Switzerland his much-discussed "Epistola Encyclica de memoria sæculari
B. Petri Canisii"; the bishops of Switzerland issued a collective
pastoral; in numerous places of Europe and in some places in the United
States this tercentenary was celebrated and about fifty pamphlets were
published. In order to encourage the veneration of Canisius there is
published at Fribourg, Switzerland, monthly since 1896, the
"Canisius-Stimmen" (in German and French). The infirmary of the College
of St. Michael, in which Canisius died, is now a chapel. Vestments and
other objects which he used are kept in different houses of the order.
The Canisius College at Buffalo possesses precious relics. In the house
of Canisius in the Broersstraat at Nimwegen the room is still shown
where he was born. Other memorials are: the Canisius statue in one of
the public squares of Fribourg, the statue in the cathedral of Augsburg,
the Church of the Holy Saviour and the Mother of Sorrows, recently
built in his memory in Vienna, and the new Canisius College at Nimwegen.
At the twenty-sixth general meeting of German Catholics held at Aachen,
1879, a Canisius society for the religious education of the young was
founded. The general prayer, said every Sunday in the churches
originated by Canisius, is still in use in the greater part of Germany,
and also in many places in Austria and Switzerland. Various portraits of
Canisius exist: in the Churches of St. Nicolaus and St. Michael in
Fribourg; in the vestry of the Augsburg Cathedral; in the Church of St.
Michael at Munich; in the town hall at Nimwegen; in the town hall at
Ingolstadt; in the Cistercian monastery at Stams. The woodcut in
Pantaleo, "Prosopographia", III (Basle, 1566), is worthless.
Copper-plates were produced by Wierx (1619), Custos (1612), Sadeler
(1628), Hainzelmann (1693), etc. In the nineteenth century are:
Fracassini's painting in the Vatican; Jeckel's steel engraving; Leo
Samberger's painting; Steinle's engraving (1886). In most of these
pictures Canisius is represented with his catechism and other books, or
surrounded by children whom he is instructing. (
See CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE; COUNTER-REFORMATION; SOCIETY OF JESUS.)
B.P. Canisii Epist. et Acta, ed. BRAUNSBERGER, (5 vols., Freiburg im Br., 1896-1905) s. v. Confessions and Testamentum; the Beatification Acts (some printed as manuscripts in only a few copies, the others unprinted); Mon. Hist. Societatis Jesu: Chronicon Polanci, Epistola quadrimestres mittæ etc., so far about thirty volumes (Madrid. 1894--). Of the complete biographies, the following are the most important: RADERUS, De Vita Canisii (Munich, 1614); SACCHINUS, De vita et rebus gestis P. Petri Canisii (Ingolstadt, 1616); BOERO, Vita del Beato Pietro Canisio (Rome, 1864); RIESS, Der selige Petrus Canisius (Freiburg, 1865); LE BACHELET in Dict. de Théol. Cath. (Paris, 1905), s. v. Canisius.
Biographies, in German: by PRATISS (Vienna, 1865), MARCOUR (Freiburg,
1881), PFÜLF (Einsiedeln, 1897), MEHLER (Ratisbon, 1897); in Latin by
PYTHON (Munich, 1710); in French by DORIGNY (Paris, 1707), SÉGUIN
(Paris, 1864), BOVET (Fribourg, 1865, 1881), DE BERTIGNY (Fribourg,
1865), MICHEL (Lille, 1897); in Dutch by DE SMIDT (Antwerp, 1652),
SÉGUIN-ALLARD (Nimwegen, 1897); in Italian by FULIGIATTI (Rome, 1649),
ODDI (Naples, 1755); in Spanish by NIEREMBERG (Madrid, 1633), GARCIA
(Madrid, 1865). Cf. also KROSS, Der selige Petrus Canisius in Oesterreich (Vienna, 1898), from manuscript sources; REISER, B. Petrus Canisius als Katechet (Mainz, 1882); ALLARD, Canisiana, from the Dutch Studien (Utrecht, 1898-99); BRAUNSBERGER, Entstehung u. erste Entwicklung d. Katechismen d. seligen Petrus Canisius (Freiburg, 1893); SOMMERVOGEL, Bibliothèque de la C. de J. (new ed., Brussels and Paris, 1890-1900), II, 617-88; VIII, 1974-83; DUHR, Gesch. d. Jesuiten in den Länden deutscher Zunge, I (Freiburg, 1907); various Nuntiature Reports of Germany and Switzerland published by STEINHERZ, SCHELLHASS, HANSEN, STEFFENS-REINHARDT, etc.
OTTO BRAUNSBERGER (Catholic Encycopedia)
In
the fullness of time, God chose to send His Only- begotten Son to earth
by means of a family – a family of Judea. The head of that family was a
man whom Scriptures calls “Just” (Matt.1:19). It also gives the
genealogy of this “Just Man”, Joseph by name, he was “of the house of
David” (Luke 1:27), though he was impoverished and exercised the
profession of a carpenter. His bride was the youthful Mary, offered by
her parents to the Temple as a small child; she had been raised among
the things of God and educated in the Holy Writ. She also descended from
King David.
Mary’s
question was not the result of doubt but of a simple need to
understand. And thus, when she was told that the child she was to bear
would be Jesus, the Son of the Most High, and that this marvel would
occur through the work of the Holy Spirit, she gave her Fiat, “…and the
Word was made flesh” (John 1:14).
Princesses
Irmina and Adela were daughters of St. Dagobert II, King of the Francs.
Their father had acceded to the throne at the age of seven but had been
deposed soon after and had fled to Ireland for safety. During his exile
he married the Anglo-Saxon princess, Matilda, and had five children,
among them Adela and Irmina. He returned to the Frankish capital of Metz
in 673 and reclaimed the throne.
In
his letter to Fabian, the Bishop of Antioch, St. Dionysius of
Alexandria speaks of Christians who suffered martyrdom under the Emperor
Decius. Many were driven to flee into the desert where they suffered
hunger, exposure, and died prey to either wild beasts, or at the hand of
men just as wild. A good number were also sold into slavery.
