St. Peter Canisius
Peter Canisius was born in Nijmegen, Holland to a wealthy
family in 1521. His father was Jakob Kanijis, an instructor of the
princes court in the court of Duke Lorraine. He was a respected
man, being appointed nine times as mayor of his native town.
(McGraw-Hill) Although Peter’s mother died at an early age, he had
a loving step-mother who stressed education and raised him to fear
God. Although Peter accused himself of wasting his youth, by the
time he was 19, he had already earned a master of arts degree at
Cologne University. As a teenager, Canisius began to find himself.
Though giving in at first, he resisted his father’s pushing him to
become a lawyer and instead followed a path of studying theology.
(Thurston and Attwater)
At Cologne, Peter first started writing seriously, something
that would mark the uniqueness of his entire career. Also, he made
acquaintances in a circle of devout priests who worked to gain
reforms within the Catholic Church. Soon, after attending a
retreat headed by Peter Faber, one of the first six companions of
Ignatius Loyola, he joined the Society of Jesus. By becoming a
Jesuit, he began the significant part of his life. He quickly rose
the ranks of the Jesuit hierarchy. Within years, he became
renowned for his knowledge of the Bible and his ability to get to
The Essay on Happened Peter Cathy Chapter Sarkar
Chapter Summaries: Chapter 1 When: January 1995 What happened: Peter Hobson (studying biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto) is invited to complete some of his forty-hour course requirement during a dissection of a dead person. The doctor amazes Peter. He looks at the patient, and before he was picked apart his pulse rate began to rise, and he seemed to grimace in pain as they made ...
the hearts of people. Over his career, he was shuttled from
location to location, mostly in Germany, counteracting the
Protestant movement which had virtually destroyed the Catholic
Church in many areas. He is often referred to as the Second
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Apostle of Germany. From 1549 to 1580, he established twenty
Jesuit colleges all over Europe, all of them marked by excellence
and all of them producing strong Catholic political and spiritual
leaders. (Eliade) At the core, though, the qualities that made him
great were his writing, his knowledge of the Bible, his passive
arguing style and his work ethic.
Peter Canisius was among the members of the elite when it came
to comprehension of spiritual matters or anything pertaining to
God. He could “duke it out” with any of the Protestant theologians
who were in general far more knowledgeable than the theologians of
the Catholic church. He could base his arguments for doctrine on
scripture just as well as any Protestant. (Bentley) It was not
this alone, though, that caused others to follow him into
Catholicism. It was the style in which his arguments were
effected. Canisius was stern towards the leaders and propagators
of Protestantism but he was gentle in his arguments. When arguing
for Catholic doctrine, he thought it was important to not stress
things the Protestants were leery of such as confession, purgatory
and indulgences. Instead, “their need, as that of children, is for
milk, and they should be led gently and gradually to those dogmas
about which there is a dispute.” He didn’t scorn or scold those
who had been born into or drifted towards Protestantism. He felt
that they were headed in the wrong direction, but it wasn’t because
they were malicious or even because they were aware of the
direction they were going. They had merely been misguided.
Therefore he felt it was his job to show them the correct path that
he felt was Catholicism. This was not an excuse to be discourteous
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In this article Roy Peter Clark expressed different view of many Politian’s speech about race. Where Roy stated W.E.B. DuBois’s famous paragraph of how race is experienced in America and Barack Obama’s March 18 speech on race. Barack Obama‘s speech “A More Perfect Union”, He talks about the Constitution. He expressed how it was effective in theory, but in reality not everybody was created equal ...
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or to scold. Rather, it was a time to be gentle and polite.
(Thurston and Attwater)
Peter’s gentle style of argumentation led to much success. He
revived the Catholic church and sustained it in many areas
including Ingolstadt, Vienna, Augsburg, Innsbruck, and Munich. In
all of these places he taught and preached, but was never overly
forceful. This is not to mention the other work he did while on
location. He anointed the sick. He visited prisoners and
attended to those who had been struck with the plague. It is
estimated that he covered 6,000 miles in three years on horseback
and foot. Peter Canisius was an indefatigable man. He had a work
ethic that wouldn’t quit. He said, “If you have too much to do,
with God’s help you will find time to do it all.”
Despite all these achievements, the work that Canisius is best
known for is his writing. He was the first Jesuit writer. Despite
having written from a fairly early point in his life, Peter was not
the greatest writer in the world. He didn’t write anything that
was really new and he didn’t have any literary ambition but his
writing was still ingenious. What makes his works intriguing is
the
unheard of level of understanding that he acquired. His most
famous writings were three catechisms, each with their own special
purpose. The first catechism was entitled the Summa Doctrinae
Christianae. It contained 213-223 detailed questions and answers
about Catholic doctrine. It was designed as a compendium for
universities and graduating classes of Jesuit schools. The second
catechism was called Summa doctrinae christianae per questiones
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tradita et ad captum rudiorum accomodata. It asks 59 questions on
The Essay on The Difference Between Catholic and Protestant Churches
Churches For a long time the Catholic church was the only denomination available; life was centred there, and all were taught the same message, in the same environment, whether they liked it or not, as the punishment was hell: and the doom paintings reinforced the belief that hell was a horrible place that you’d spend eternity in. But in 1517 everything changed. Martin Luther was the first ...
Catholic doctrine and gives short, but concise answers. It was
intended to give initial religious instruction to children. The
third catechism was entitled Catechismus Minor seu parvus
Catechismus Catholicorum. This third catechism includes a detailed
calendar with feasts and saints in addition to 124 questions and
short answers. This catechism was intended to be a textbook for
secondary Jesuit schools. All of these works were typical of
Peter’s character. They were detailed, concise and comprehensive.
They clearly explained the Catholic church’s views and were mass
produced until the 19th century. These catechisms were so helpful
to Catholics of the day that they were translated into dozens of
languages. Altogether, there were about 200 editions of the
catechisms put out, even while he was alive. (McGraw-Hill)
By 1591, Peter was reaching old age. It was in this year that
he suffered a paralytic seizure. This brought him to the brink of
death but he managed to recover to the point where he could write
again, with the help of a secretary. This was the beginning of the
end, though for Peter Canisius. He died on December 21, 1597. In
1925, he was canonized. At the same time he was declared a Doctor
of the Church for his catechetical studies. St. Peter was an
unforgettable figure for the Catholic church in the 1500’s. Through
his knowledge, preaching and writing, he saved Catholicism in
Germany. Were it not for him, Catholicism could possibly have been
non-existent throughout much of eastern Europe. His gentle
approach to defending Catholic doctrine was very important in terms
of pulling back Protestants who had been misguided to the Catholic
church. He was a tireless man to whom the Catholic church will
always be indebted.
