DEHARBE, JOSEPH. - Jesuit, b. in Strasbourg in Alsace on 1 April 1800, d. at Maria Laach on 8 November 1871. A professor at Brig and in the seminary of Lucerne, with some intervals of preaching, he soon became convinced of the pressing need for a catechism better suited to the needs of the time, simpler and more popular; therefore, closely following the best models and especially the texts of St. Peter Canisius, though dividing the material differently, he published anonymously his Katholischer Katechismus (Regensburg 1847), set out in four different ways, for children, for pupils of the various grades of schools, and for adults.
The work immediately won universal approval; that same year and in those following it was adopted as the official text in many dioceses of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, and the United States of America. This multiplied the editions, with or without the author's name, and the translations; both with ever new adaptations and reworkings, down to our own days. The merits of the work are, together with theological exactness, the brevity and precision of expression, its clarity and order.
D. later completed his catechetical work with the Erklärung des katholischen Katechismus (4 vols., to which he wished to add a fifth: Religionsgeschichte, a concise history of the Church, which resolves itself at the same time into a limpid demonstration of its divine origin [Regensburg 1857-61]); which he then reduced to a compendium with the Kürzeres Handbuch für Religionsunterricht (2 vols., ibid. 1865-68). Among the many Italian translations of his works, worthy of note is that of the Erklärung under the title: Spiegazione del catechismo grande, illustrated with examples and arranged according to the order of the Catechism of Pius X, edited by G. Perardi (6 vols., Rome 1908-1909).
Of the other ascetical works it is well to remember: Examen ad usum cleri (Regensburg 1849) and Die Vollkommene Liebe Gottes (ibid. 1856).
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