Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/828

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PETER


758


PETER


siastical benedictions, and acts of penance. From 1561-52 he preached about two hundred and ten ser- mons, besides giving rt'treats and teaching catechism. In the catliedral iiis confessional and the altar at which he said M!i.ss were surrounded by crowds, and alms were placed on the altar. The envy of some of the cathedral clergy w:is aroused, and Canisius and his companions were accused of usurping the paro- chial rights. The pope and bishop fa\oured the Jesu- its, but the majority of the chapter opposed them. Canisius wiis obliged to sign an agreement according to which he retained the pulpit but gave up the right of adniiiiislcring the sacraments in the cathedral.

In lo.jlt he ojjened 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 156.3 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 inten- tion of all concerned in the dissolution of the coun- cil and in a new national apostasy. The emperor finally granted all the pope's demands and the coun- cil 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 CathoUcs 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 Swa- bia ; 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 advnce, 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 Home 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 euiorcement, to ask the Catholic princes to


defend the Church at the coming diet, and to nego- tiate 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, Wiirzburg, Osnabriick, Minister, and Paderborn, with the Duke of Jiilich-C^leves-Berg, and with the City and University of Cologne; he also visited Nimwegen, preaching there and at i)ther])laces; his mission, however, was interrupted by the death of the pope. Pius V desired its continual icm, l)ut Canisius requested to be relieved; he said that it aroused sus- picions of espionage, of arrogance, and of interference in politics (for a detailed account of his mi.ssion see "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach", LXXl, .'is, 1()4, 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 diffi- culty, in persuading the legate not to issue his protest against the religious peace, and thus prevented a new fratricidal war. The Catholic memlK^rs of the diet acce])ted 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 fiermany. In the same year Canisius went to \\'ic\sensteig, where he visited and brought back to the Church the Lutheran Count of Helfenstein and his entire count- sliiij, 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 Wiirzburg, gave instruction in the Franciscan church twice a week to the children and domestics of the town, and discussed the founding of a Jesuit college at Wiirzburg with the bishop. Then followed the diocesan synod of Dilhngen (at which Canisius was principal adviser of the Bishop of Augsburg), journcj's to Wiirzburg, 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 of Jesus, and sent him with hearty recom- mendations to the general of the order at Rome. At this time he successfully settled a dispute in the ]3hilosophical faculty of the L^niversity of Ingolstadt. In 1567 and 1568 he went several times to Inns- bruck, 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 estabUshment of a Jesuit house at Hall. In 1569 the general decided to accept the college at Hall.

During Lent of 1568 Canisius preached at Ell- wangen, in Wtirtemberg; 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 pro- vincial 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 later 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 super\'ised at Ingolstadt the printing of an important work, and