St. Peter Canisius, Priest and Doctor of the Church




     In the 1500s Christendom in Europe was deeply divided.  The issue, at its heart, was what is the actual Good News of Jesus Christ?  There was anger and violence on both sides over the matter.  Whole countries were divided, within themselves and between each other, as we are divided today over lesser, secular politics.  So the Church convened the great Council of Trent to clarify the ancient Gospel, as it had been received over the 15 preceding Christian centuries. 

    

     After Trent, the Vatican needed to get the results of the Council out to the people.  What would have been a simple errand in an earlier day, was now a dangerous assignment.  The first envoy who tried to carry the documents was robbed of them—and barely escaped.  

     Rome needed someone courageous, above suspicion, and willing to work sometimes underground.  They chose Fr. Peter Kanis (later latinized into Canisius).  The assignment they gave him was like bringing multiple Bibles today into North Korea or China.  You were likely to be thrown into prison—or killed.

     Peter Canisius was a Jesuit who had founded colleges with a quality of learning that people on both sides respected.  But he couldn't hide what he was carrying in the same way as our modern missionaries hide them in dangerous places, taking them in tiny microchips hidden in collar buttons or cans of shaving cream.  He did use the latest, most amazing technology of his day—the printing press.  Now you could make multiple copies of a book without the time and labor needed to hand-copy each one.  

     Peter managed to crisscross Austria, Bavaria, and Bohemia with carts loaded down with the large, printed catechisms from the Council of Trent—250 pages each—plus three additional sacks of books that he took along to supply universities.

     Peter had already edited and written several volumes on church history and theology.  He’d been a delegate to the Council of Trent.  And he had successfully reformed some of the German universities.  

     Called to Vienna to reform their university, he knew that he couldn't win the people by speaking in his German accent.  Rather, he won their hearts by ministering to the sick and dying during a pandemic--and there were no vaccines.  The people and the king wanted to make Fr. Peter the bishop of Vienna, but Peter declined vigorously.

     For many years, Peter had seen students in the universities swayed back and forth by arguments about the faith.  Peter was not alone in wanting, in addition to the new universal catechism, some more local versions. 

     The first issue of his catechism appeared in 1555, and was an immediate success.  Peter soon produced two more.  One was a Shorter Catechism for middle-school students.  The other was a Shortest Catechism for young children.

     As intent as Peter was on helping people know the faith, he followed the Jesuit (and biblical) policy that harsh words should never be used, but that truth should be spoken in love, so that those listening would see an example of genuine charity in the way we act and speak. 

     St. Peter died today, December 21, 1597.  He is a Doctor of the Universal Church.

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     I think it’s appropriate, in his memory, to take some time today to read a portion of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which St. John Paul II saw as so important to what he named “the new evangelization”.

     St. Peter Canisius, pray for us!

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