DENS, PIERRE. — Belgian theologian, b. at Boom on 12 November 1690, d. at Malines on 15 February 1775.
He engaged in several controversies, one of which had political repercussions, when the government of the Netherlands banned his work: Supplementa theologiae L. Neesen, de virtute religionis, reliquisque virtutibus justitiae annexis (Malines 1758), in which he defended the right of asylum in churches. He wrote: Schemata practica ad usum confessariorum (Malines 1742); De sacramento paenitentiae (ibid. 1758); Theologia ad usum seminariorum et sacrae theologiae alumnorum (Louvain 1777), adopted in the seminaries of Belgium and elsewhere because of its adherence to the doctrine of St Thomas and its didactic clarity.
BIBL.: Hurter, V, col. 46; J. Forget, s. V. in DTHC, IV, cols. 421–23. Cosimo Petino