AERTNYS, JOZEF. - Moral theologian, 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 was ordained 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, together with Msgr. Schaepman, the theological-pastoral periodical Nederlandsche Katholieke Stemmen, to which he contributed actively.
A.’s principal work is the Theologia moralis secundum doctrinam s. Alphonsi de Ligorio Doctoris Ecclesiae, first published in 1886; an esteemed manual which, after the author’s death, was completed and brought up to date by C. Damen, and has so far reached its 15th ed. (Turin 1947). Also owing to A. are: a Theologia pastoralis seu Praxis confessariorum (5th ed., Gulpen 1916), a Caeremoniale sollemnium functionum (3rd ed., edited by P. Pluym, Boscoducale 1921), and a Compendium Liturgiae Sacrae (10th ed., edited by P. Dankelman, Turin 1936).