BUSBEMBAUM, HERMANN. - Jesuit, moralist, born at Nottuln (Westphalia) in 1600, died at Münster on 31 January 1669. For several years professor of philosophy, dogmatics, and moral theology, later rector at Hildesheim and Münster, and a highly esteemed spiritual director, he owes his universal fame to the work *Medulla theologiae moralis* (Münster 1650).
As professor of moral theology at Cologne, he had composed for his students a brief, clear, and well-organized compendium, drawing on the notes and annotations of two of his predecessors, Frs. H. Nünning and F. von Spee. The compendium proved so popular that it had to be printed, and its success was such that, apart from the numerous editions (over 200 by 1766), it also served as the foundational text upon which renowned theologians such as C. La Croix, A. Ballerini, and especially St. Alphonsus Liguori, wrote their celebrated commentaries. Indeed, before publishing his own *Theologia moralis*, the Saint issued the same *Medulla* in four successive editions (Naples 1748; ibid., 2 vols., 1753-55; Rome, 3 vols., 1757; ibid., 3 vols., 1760), adding increasingly copious notes and appendices.
Nevertheless, Busembaum faced vehement criticism. Some opinions, which he had accepted as probable, were later condemned by Alexander VII (1665-66) and Innocent XI (1679) and consequently corrected in later editions. More contentious was the proposition on the liceity of personal defense, even to the point of killing an unjust aggressor, even if he were a sovereign (I. III, tr. iv, cap. I, dubium 3, n. 8), for which the *Medulla* was condemned to the flames by the Parliaments of Paris and Toulouse (1757); and the proposition that the end justifies the means (I. IV, cap. 3, dubium 7, art. 2, n. 3). Yet the first proposition, though judged imprudent, is in itself true and just, according to eminent theologians including St. Antoninus, from whom it is almost literally taken, and is substantially admitted even by St. Thomas. The second concerns only those means which are in themselves indifferent, and thus remain justified by a legitimate end.