ESSER, THOMAS. - Last secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, b. at Aachen on 7 April 1850, d. at Rome on 13 March 1926. He studied at Bonn, Würzburg and Cologne. A priest from 1873, he was expelled from Euskirchen, where he was a chaplain, in the wake of the "Kulturkampf". Withdrawing to Rome, he entered the Dominican Order, professing at Graz on 17 Jan. 1879. He taught theology at Vienna and at Venlo, philosophy at Maynooth (Ireland) and canon law at Fribourg in Switzerland (1891-95) and at Rome at the Minerva (1895-97). A member of various Roman congregations, from 1900 secretary of the Congregation of the Index, he was elevated to the titular episcopal see of Synnada on 25 March 1917, when that same congregation was suppressed.

He wrote: U. L. Frauen Rosenkranz (Paderborn 1889; French trans., Lyon-Paris 1894); Zur Archäologie der Paternauerscheur (Fribourg 1898); S. Thomas monita et preces (Paderborn 1890); Über die Möglichkeit einer anfanglosen Schöpfung (Munich 1895); S. Maria dell'Anima in Rom (Rome 1899; Italian trans., ibid. 1906); Das Ave Maria-Läuten (Munich 1902); Über die allmündliche Einführung der Jetzt beim Rosenkranz üblichen Betrachtungspunkte (Mainz 1906).

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: I. Taurisano, Hierarchia O. P., Rome 1916, p. 121; anon., T. E., in Analecta O. P., 5 (1897), p. 76; 8 (1900), p. 412; 16 (1908), p. 736; anon., T. E., in Il Rosario, Memorie Dom., 17 (1900), p. 91; 34 (1917), pp. 362-63, 423-24; 45 (1926), pp. 173-74. Alfonso D'Amato

@incollection{ec5_esser_thomas, author = {D'Amato, Alfonso}, title = {Esser, thomas}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {621}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/esser-thomas} }

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Esser, Thomas

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