Petrus Canisius

Saint Petrus Canisius
Born	May 8 1521(1521-05-08) in Nijmegen in the Duchy of Guelders
Died	December 21 1597 (aged 76)
Venerated in	Roman Catholicism
Canonized	1925
Feast	April 27 or December 21

Saint Petrus Canisius (May 8, 1521 – December 21, 1597) was an important Jesuit who fought against the spread of Protestantism in Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Switzerland. The restoration of Catholicism in Germany after the Reformation is attributed to his work.

Canisius supervised the founding and maintenance of the early German Jesuit Colleges, and his frequent travels won him the title "Second Apostle of Germany." He founded colleges at Munich, Innsbruck, Dillingen, Würzburg, Augsburg, and Vienna.

Canisius is also noted for his contributions to the important debates at Worms (1557), the Diet of Augsburg (1559), and the Council of Trent. He was also an important influence on the Holy Roman emperor and several other princes, and his preaching is credited with winning back numerous Lutherans to the Catholic side.

A prolific writer and publisher, his most important work was his so-called Triple Catechism, the most famous catechism of the Counter-Reformation, which was published in more than 400 editions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Saint Peter Canisius was beatified by Blessed Pius IX in the year 1864, and later canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church on May 21, 1925 by Pope Pius XI. His feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is currently celebrated on December 21.

Biography

Early life

Born in Nijmegen in the Duchy of Guelders (until 1549 part of the Holy Roman Empire, now in the Netherlands) Peter's 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 there, receiving the degree of Master of Arts in 1540. His acquaintances included staunch Catholics such as Georg of Skodborg, who had been expelled as archbishop of Lund by the Protestants; Johann Gropper, the canon of the Cologne cathedral, and several Carthusian monks.

Although his father desired him to marry a wealthy young woman Peter pledged himself to celibacy. In 1543 he visited the Jesuit leader Peter Faber, devoting himself to the Jesuit "Spiritual Exercises" under Faber's direction. Canisius was admitted into the Society of Jesus at Mainz, on May 8, 1543, the first Dutchman to join the Jesuit order.

Preaching and teaching

Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I

With the help of Leonhard Kessel and others, Canisius founded Jesuit house in Germany at Cologne. He also preached in the city and its suburbs, and debated and taught in the university. In 1546 he was admitted to the priesthood. Soon after this, he was sent to obtain assistance from Emperor Charles V against the the Protestant leader Hermann von Wied, the former archbishop who had attempted to convert the diocese to the Protestant cause. In 1547, he participated in the Council of Trent, where is recorded as having spoken twice to an assembly of theologians. After this he spent several months under the direction of Jesuit leader Ignatius Loyola in Rome. In 1548 he taught rhetoric at Messina, Sicily, preaching. At this time Duke William IV of Bavaria requested Pope Paul III to send him some professors from the Society of Jesus for the University of Ingolstadt, and Canisius was among those selected, reaching the city in 1549 after spending time in Rome with Ignatius Loyola and receiving a doctorate in theology at Bologna. In 1550 he was elected rector of the university, and in 1552he was sent by Ignatius to the new college in Vienna. There, he taught theology in the university and preached at the court of Ferdinand I, and was confessor at the hospital and prison. In 1553, he visited many parishes in Austria which had previously been abandoned by the Catholics. Canisius also exerted a strong influence on Emperor Ferdinand I by warning him that providing more rights to Protestants would endanger his soul.

When Ferdinand's son and heir the future Maximilian II was about to declare himself Protestant, Canisus convinced Ferdinand to threaten to disinherit Maximilian should he do so. Maximilian had appointed a married priest named Phauser to the office of court preacher, who preached the Lutheran doctrine. Canisius opposed Phauser in public disputations and warned Ferdinand I, verbally and in writing about his son's pro-Protestant attitude. Maximilian was obliged to dismiss Phauser.

Ferdinand offered Canisus the position of Bishop of Vienna on three occasions, but he refused. In 1555 he was present at the Diet of Augsburg with Ferdinand, at which the Peace of Augsburg was concluded and it as was agreed that each sovereign prince could decided the religion of his subjects.

Later in 1555, Canisus succeeded in winning approval to open Jesuit colleges at Ingolstadt and Prague, and Ignatius appointed him first provincial superior of Upper Germany.

By the appointment of the Catholic princes and the order of the pope he took part in the Colloquy of Worms in 1557, where he acted as the champion of the Catholics in opposition to the Lutheran leader Philip Melanchthon. Canisius is generally credited with sowing seeds of discord among the Protestants regarding their doctrine of original sin and justification, forcing the meeting to be dissolved.

In the same year, Pope Julius III himself appointed him as administrator of the bishopric of Vienna for one year, but Canisius succeeded keeping the appointment temporary.

Canisius was an influential teacher and preacher, especially through his "German catechism," a book that defined the basic principles of Catholicism in the German language and found many readers in German-speaking countries. He preached hundreds of sermons in many European cities. His preaching was said to have been so convincing that it attracted hundreds of Protestants back to the Catholic faith.

In 1559 he opened a college in Munich. In 1562 he appeared again at the ongoing Council Trent, this time as a papal theologian. In the spring of 1563, when the emperor had become estranged from the pope and the Roman curia Canisius strove to reconcile them, enabling the Council of Trent to end peacefully. When Rome praised him for his efforts, however, Ferdinand now began to consider his loyalty suspect.

In 1565, Pius IV sent him as his nuncio to deliver the decrees of the Council of Trent to Germany. Canisius negotiated with the Electors of Mainz and Trier, as well several important other political leaders and bishops. After Pius IV's death, Canisus requested to be relieved of this assignment by Pius V saying that his activities had aroused suspicions of espionage and interference in politics.

At the Diet of Augsburg in 1566, Canisius helped convince Cardinal Commendone to do condemn the fragile peace. This is thought to have helped avert a new religious war and bring about a renewal of the Catholic Church in Germany. In the same year Canisius credited with bringing the Lutheran Count of Helfenstein to the Catholic Church. He was also involved in the deaths two "witches" in the area. Over the next year he continued teaching, preaching, and establishing new Jesuit educational institutions.

In 1569 he returned to Augsburg and preached Lenten sermons in the Church of St. Mauritius. In 1570, he moved to Innsbruck to serve as the court preacher to Archduke Ferdinand II. In 1575 Pope Gregory XIII sent him with papal messages to the archduke and to the Duke of Bavaria. He attended the Diet of Ratisbon in 1576 as theologian of the cardinal legate Morone.

By the time he left Germany in 1580, the Jesuit order in there had evolved from almost nothing into a powerful tool of the Counter Reformation.

Canisius spent the last 17 years of his life in Fribourg, Switzerland, where he founded the Jesuit College that became the core of today's University of Fribourg.

Legacy

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 was an important force in influencing the Catholic Church and the Jesuit order to invest substantial efforts to defend the Catholic faith in northern Europe, even as it also worked to evangelize in India and elsewhere. He influenced Pius V to send yearly subsidies to the Catholic printers of Germany, and he induced the city council of Fribourg to erect and support a printing establishment. 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. He was a prolific writer and publisher, with hundreds of works to his credit.

While he was harshly criticized by his contemporary opponents as a cynic who knowingly defended Catholic errors, he won the respect of later Protestants who recognized his sincerity of faith and praised his moral character.

Soon after his death reports spread of the miraculous help obtained by invoking his name. His tomb was visited by pilgrims. In Art, Canisius is often represented with his catechism and other books, or surrounded by children whom he is instructing.

Legacy

In recognition of his early work in the establishment of Jesuit education, there are mulitple educational institutions named for Canisius. Among them is Canisius College, a Jesuit secondary school in his hometown of Nijmegen and the alma mater of Peter Hans Kolvenbach, the current Superior General of the Jesuit order. Another Canisius College, a post-secondary school, and Canisius High School, a secondary school, are located in Buffalo, New York. Furthermore, a jesuit-run Canisius Kolleg can be found in Berlin, Germany. There is also a secondary or post-secondary complex of schools named for Canisius, Kolese Kanisius (Collegium Canisianum or Canisius College), on Jakarta, Indonesia. In 1850 they also founded the Canisius Hospital on the corner of the Houtmarkt and the Pauwelstraat in Nijmegen. In 1974 it has merged in to the Canisius Wilhelmina Hospital located at the Weg door Jonkerbos in Nijmegen. The 'Apologetische Vereniging St. Petrus Canisius' (apologetic association Petrus Canisius) was founded in the Netherlands in 1904. The purpose of this association was the defense of the Roman Catholic Church against new values of socialism and liberalism and the restoration of the society with a more Catholic way of life.

Until the revision of the Roman Catholic calendar of saints by Pope Paul VI in 1969, St Peter Canisius' feast day was celebrated on April 27. Traditional Roman Catholics continue to commemorate the feast of "Saint Peter Canisius, Confessor and Doctor of the Church", on April 27. St. Peter became canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1925. His feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is April 27 or December 21.

Works

• (1555) Summa doctrinae christianae
• (1556) Catechismus minimus
• (1558) Parvus catechismus catholicorum

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine). The Lives of the Saints. With introduction and additional Lives of English martyrs, Cornish, Scottish, and Welsh saints, and a full index to the entire work. Edinburgh: J. Grant, 1914.
• Butler, Alban. Lives of the Saints. Edited, revised, and supplemented by Herbert Thurston and Donald Attwater. Palm Publishers, 1956.
• Braunsberger, Otto. "Blessed Peter Canisius" in The Catholic Encyclopedia. 1911.
• Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0192800582.

External links

All links retrieved September 18, 2007

• Canisius College Jakarta's official web site
• Kolese Kanisius Jakarta in Wikipedia
• Website of Canisius Kolleg Berlin, Germany (German)

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Petrus Canisius  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Petrus Canisius"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.