Aertnys, Jozef

AERTNYS, JOZEF. - Moralist, b. at Eindhoven on 15 Jan. 1828, d. on 30 June 1915. A novice of the Redemptorists at St. Trond (Belgium) in 1845, he took his vows the following year together with the well-known convert Isaac Hecker, and on 14 Dec. 1854 he was ordained a priest at Liège. From 1860 to 1898 he was professor of moral theology in the convent of Wittem (Holland), where he himself had completed his philosophical and theological studies, and where the future cardinals Dechamps and Van Rossum taught dogmatic theology. In 1901 he founded with Msgr. Schaepman the theological-pastoral periodical Nederlandsche Katholieke Stemmen, to which he contributed actively.

The A.'s principal work is the Theologia moralis secundum doctrinam s. Alphonsi de Ligorio Doctoris Ecclesiae, published for the first time in 1886; an esteemed manual which, after the author's death, was completed and updated by C. Damen, reaching its 15th ed. so far (Turin 1947). To the A. are also owed: a Theologia pastoralis seu Praxis confessariorum (5th ed., Gulpen 1916), a Caeremoniale sollemnium functionum (3rd ed., edited by P. Pluym, 's-Hertogenbosch 1921) and a Compendium Liturgiae Sacrae (10th ed., edited by P. Dankelman, Turin 1936).