BENZIGER, ALOYS DI S

BENZIGER, ALOYS of S. MARIA. - Son of the publisher Johann B., born 31 January 1864 in Einsiedeln; he became a Carmelite in Bruges (1854), was ordained priest in 1888, and set out as a missionary for India (1890), where, after two years of teaching in the seminary of Puthempally, he was made secretary to the Apostolic Delegate Monsignor Zaleski, with whom he toured all of India. Elected (July 1900) coadjutor to the Bishop of Quilon Monsignor Ossi, he succeeded him in that see in 1905. Through untiring activity, he succeeded in placing the diocese, in the number of annual conversions, at the head of all the missions of India, while also providing for the instruction and increase of the indigenous clergy, erecting churches and schools, and introducing European nuns into secondary schools and hospitals. On 4 July 1931 he obtained permission from the Holy See to resign, and having been named titular archbishop of Antinoe (23 July 1931), he retired to the convent of the novitiate of the Discalced Carmelites in Trivandrum, where he died on 17 August 1942.