St Peter Canisius: Second Apostle of Germany, Doctor

St Peter Canisius (1521-1597) was the Dutch Jesuit who, more than any other man, held the German lands for the Catholic faith in the century of Luther: preacher, founder of colleges, adviser of emperors and popes, and author of the catechism that taught the faith to generations of Catholics. The Church calls him the Second Apostle of Germany, after St Boniface, and Pope Pius XI canonized him and declared him a Doctor of the Church in 1925. In the calendar of 1962 his feast falls on 27 April; here are his life according to Butler and the Roman Breviary, his catechism, his sayings, and the prayers of his Mass in Latin and English.

Who was St Peter Canisius?

Peter Kanis, or Canisius in the Latin form, was born at Nijmegen, in Guelders, in 1521, then a city of the Empire in the archdiocese of Cologne. The Roman Breviary, in the full lessons it read at Matins before the rubrics of 1960 contracted them into a single lesson (we follow those older lessons for several details below), notes the date with a purpose: he was born, it says, in the very year in which Luther broke with the Church in open rebellion, and in which Ignatius of Loyola, in Spain, laid down the arms of an earthly soldier to fight the battles of the Lord; as though God were showing beforehand both the adversary he would face and the captain under whom he would serve.

His father, Jacob Kanis, had been tutor to the sons of the Duke of Lorraine, was ennobled, and was nine times burgomaster of Nijmegen. Peter lost his mother early, but, Butler says, his stepmother proved excellent, and he grew up "having before his eyes the fear of God". He took his master's degree at the University of Cologne at nineteen. His father wished him to be a lawyer, and he studied canon law for a few months at Louvain; but he refused marriage, bound himself to God by a vow of chastity, and went back to Cologne to read theology.

At Mainz he made the Spiritual Exercises under Blessed Peter Faber, the first companion of St Ignatius of Loyola, and during the second week of the retreat vowed to join the new Society of Jesus. He was received as a novice. Even before his ordination he had begun to write: his first publications were editions of the works of St Cyril of Alexandria and St Leo the Great. After his ordination he attended the Council of Trent, at Trent and then at Bologna, and was called to Rome by St Ignatius, who kept him at his side for five months.

The Second Apostle of Germany

The Breviary sums up his life in one sentence: for more than forty years he spent himself to defend the cities and provinces of Germany from the contagion of heresy, or to bring back to the Catholic faith those that were infected. Butler gives the details.

Ingolstadt. In answer to Duke William IV of Bavaria, who begged for Catholic professors, Canisius was sent to the University of Ingolstadt. He reformed the university, of which he became rector and then vice-chancellor, and revived the faith of the people by his sermons and catechizing.

Vienna. In 1552 he was sent to Vienna at the request of King Ferdinand. He found the city in a worse state still: many parishes without clergy, not a single priest ordained for twenty years, the monasteries desolate. At first he preached to almost empty churches; he won the hearts of the people by nursing the sick and the dying during the plague. The king, the nuncio and the Pope himself wished him to be made bishop of Vienna; the older lessons of the Breviary say that he refused that see three times, and St Ignatius allowed him only to administer the diocese for one year, without episcopal orders, title or revenue.

Provincial. St Ignatius named him provincial of Upper Germany, a province that took in South Germany, Austria and Bohemia. Canisius protested to his founder: "I am entirely lacking in the tact, prudence and decision essential for ruling others. My temper is hasty and fiery." St Ignatius knew better. In Prague he helped to found a college to which even Protestants sent their sons; at Augsburg, where he lived for six years from 1559, he rekindled the faith of the city. Butler, following his biographer Fr Brodrick, reckons that he travelled some twenty thousand miles in thirty years, on foot and on horseback.

The same older lessons add the great assemblies: at the diets of Ratisbon and Augsburg he urged the princes of the Empire to defend the rights of the Church and to reform morals, and at the conference of Worms he silenced the masters of unbelief. He attended the Council of Trent more than once, and by order of Pope Pius IV saw to the promulgation of its decrees in Germany. He founded houses and colleges in many places, supported the German College in Rome, and restored the ruined study of sacred and humane letters in the universities.

Fribourg. In 1580 he was sent to Fribourg, in Switzerland, a Catholic canton set between powerful Protestant neighbours. He raised the money, chose the site and oversaw the building of the College of St Michael, and for more than eight years preached every Sunday and feast in the principal church and on weekdays through the canton. "It may confidently be asserted," Butler writes, "that to St Peter Canisius is due the credit of having retained Fribourg in the Catholic fold at a critical period of its history."

It is for all this that he was called, in the words of the Breviary, "the hammer of heretics and the second apostle of Germany". The first is our own St Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, who had evangelized the same lands eight centuries before.

The catechism of St Peter Canisius

The work for which his name has lasted is his catechism. At the wish of King Ferdinand he wrote the Summa doctrinae christianae, the Summary of Christian Doctrine, published at Vienna in 1555 for older students, and then a Shorter and a Shortest Catechism for children and the simple. "These catechisms," says Butler, "were to be to the Catholic Reformation what Luther's catechisms were to the Protestant Reformation": they were reprinted more than two hundred times and translated into fifteen languages in the author's own lifetime, including English, Scots, Hindustani and Japanese.

The Breviary praises the Summa as approved everywhere by the judgement of theologians and the long use of the faithful. It sets out the whole of Catholic doctrine in short questions and answers, beginning, as every catechism does, with the Creed, which we give in full on our page on the Apostles' Creed.

One feature of the book marks the man, its gentleness: Butler notes that he never, in his catechisms or his instructions, stirred up hostility against the truths he taught by attacking his opponents violently or rudely. He also wrote, by order of his superiors, two volumes against the Centuriators of Magdeburg, a Protestant history of the Church, and edited a selection of the letters of St Jerome, a Manual for Catholics and a martyrology. Butler adds that the General Prayer which he composed was still recited in Germany on Sundays. He saw clearly what the printing press would mean, and fought bad books and promoted good ones with all his strength; Butler calls him one of the creators of a Catholic press.

Our own comparison of the two confessions, Catholic vs Protestant: the key differences, covers the doctrines his catechism was written to defend.

The saint behind the work

The older lessons of the Breviary dwell on what the travels hid. He prayed constantly, often in tears, and was sometimes rapt out of his senses in prayer. He was held in great honour by princes, by saints and by four Popes, yet he called himself the least of all and believed it. He was ready at a sign from his superiors to drop any work or take up any other, even at the risk of his health and life.

They also record that his charity was kindled, as from its source, in the Heart of Jesus: the fire of divine charity which he had once drawn abundantly "from the inmost depths of the Heart of Jesus", in the Vatican Basilica, inflamed him for the rest of his life.

Before the reform of 1960, the Breviary even read at Matins of his feast a homily taken from his own notes on the Gospels, on the words "You are the salt of the earth" (St Matthew v. 13). One sentence from it is the programme of his life: "It is not enough for the teacher of the Gospel to give light to the people by his word... he must also burn, so that, furnished with works and charity, he may adorn his office."

St Peter Canisius quotes

These sayings are given by Butler from his letters and writings:

• "If you have too much to do, with God's help you will find time to do it all."
• On the ordinary Lutherans of Germany: "Certainly an infinite number of them adhere to the new sectaries and err in religious belief, but they do so in such a way as proves that their errors proceed from ignorance rather than malice. They err, I repeat, but without contention, without wilfulness, without obstinacy."
• On how to meet those in error: not "in a temper of asperity or with discourtesy, for this is nothing else than the reverse of Christ's example, inasmuch as it is to break the bruised reed and quench the smoking flax".
• His counsel on controversy: not to begin with the subjects that most repel Protestants, "confession, satisfaction, purgatory, indulgences, monastic vows and pilgrimages", but to lead them "gently and gradually" to the disputed dogmas.

Butler is honest that Canisius was stern towards the leaders of heresy and, like most men of his time, ready to see its spread repressed by force; but towards the people born into Lutheranism he showed this patience, after the advice of St Ignatius himself, who wanted "an example of charity and Christian moderation" given in Germany.

How did St Peter Canisius die?

In his last years at Fribourg his strength failed. Increasing infirmities forced him to give up preaching, and in 1591 a paralytic stroke brought him to the brink of death; he recovered enough to go on writing with the help of a secretary until shortly before the end. He died at Fribourg on 21 December 1597, in his seventy-seventh year, the Breviary says. The city had him buried before the high altar of its principal church, St Nicholas; in 1625 his remains were moved to the church of St Michael, the church of the Jesuit college he had founded.

When was St Peter Canisius canonized?

Pope Pius IX beatified him. Pope Pius XI canonized him in the Holy Year 1925, and in the same act declared him a Doctor of the universal Church, after new miracles, the lessons read before 1960 say, had confirmed his holiness.

The prayer of St Peter Canisius (Missal of 1962)

His Mass is from the Common of Doctors, In medio Ecclesiae, with the Gospel "You are the salt of the earth" (St Matthew v. 13-19); the Collect is proper to him and asks precisely what he spent his life obtaining.

Collect, 27 April

Deus, qui ad tuéndam cathólicam fidem beátum Petrum Confessórem tuum virtúte et doctrína roborásti: concéde propítius; ut ejus exémplis et mónitis errántes ad salútem resipíscant, et fidéles in veritátis confessióne persevérent. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

O God, who for the defence of the Catholic faith didst strengthen blessed Peter, Thy Confessor, with virtue and learning: mercifully grant that by his example and his counsels those who err may come back to a right mind unto salvation, and the faithful may persevere in the confession of the truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Secret

Sancti Petri Confessóris tui atque Doctóris nobis, Dómine, pia non desit orátio: quæ et múnera nostra concíliet; et tuam nobis indulgéntiam semper obtíneat. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

May the loving prayer of Saint Peter, Thy Confessor and Doctor, never fail us, O Lord: may it make our gifts acceptable to Thee, and ever obtain for us Thy pardon. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Postcommunion

Ut nobis, Dómine, tua sacrifícia dent salútem: beátus Petrus Conféssor tuus et Doctor egrégius, quǽsumus, precátor accédat. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

That Thy sacrifices may bring us salvation, O Lord, may blessed Peter, Thy Confessor and illustrious Doctor, we beseech Thee, stand by us as our intercessor. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

The Collect is the surest prayer to St Peter Canisius on any day of the year, and a fitting one for a relative or friend who has left the faith: it asks that the erring come back and the faithful persevere. Those who wish to make a novena may simply pray it on nine days, from 18 to 26 April, before his feast.

When is the feast day of St Peter Canisius?

In the calendar of 1962 the feast of St Peter Canisius, Confessor and Doctor of the Church, falls on 27 April. It is a feast of the third class, in white vestments, with the Gloria and without the Creed. At Matins it has a single nocturn, and the history of the saint is read in one contracted lesson. His feast was added to the Roman calendar after his canonization, and 27 April always falls in Paschaltide; in the years when that day is a Sunday, or falls within the octave of Easter, the saint gives way to the higher day. You will find it in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and St Peter Canisius takes his place among the saints of the year in our guide to the Catholic saints, listed by feast day.

The calendar of 1969 moved his feast to 21 December, the day of his death.

What is St Peter Canisius the patron saint of?

No act of the Holy See in the sources we have read names him patron of anything. What the sources do give him are two titles: the Breviary calls him the second apostle of Germany, and Butler honours him as one of the creators of a Catholic press. Catechists, too, can look to the author of the most widely used catechism of his age.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was St Peter Canisius?

A Dutch Jesuit priest (1521-1597), born at Nijmegen, who spent more than forty years restoring the Catholic faith in Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Switzerland by preaching, founding colleges and writing his famous catechism. The Church honours him as the Second Apostle of Germany and a Doctor of the Church.

What is St Peter Canisius known for?

Above all for his catechisms, reprinted more than two hundred times in his lifetime, and for winning back much of Germany for the Catholic faith with a firmness that never forgot charity.

Why is he called the Second Apostle of Germany?

Because, like St Boniface eight centuries earlier, he re-planted the faith across the German lands; the Roman Breviary itself gives him the title.

When did St Peter Canisius die?

On 21 December 1597, at Fribourg in Switzerland, after a stroke in 1591 had left him an invalid.

Where is St Peter Canisius buried?

At Fribourg. The city first buried him before the high altar of St Nicholas, its principal church; in 1625 his remains were moved to the church of St Michael, the church of the Jesuit college he had founded.

Did St Peter Canisius work miracles?

His great work was preaching and teaching rather than wonders; but the lessons read in the Breviary before 1960 record that his holiness was confirmed by new miracles before his canonization in 1925.

Is there a novena to St Peter Canisius?

The surest way to make one is to pray the Collect of his feast, given above, on nine days before 27 April.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962 with the Mass of St Peter Canisius, the Breviary and the traditional calendar, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 27 April (St Peter Canisius, Doctor of the Church). Roman Breviary, 27 April, lesson of St Peter Canisius (1960) and the lessons and homily read before 1960. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 27 April, and Common of Doctors. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, St Matthew v. 13-19.