ESSER, Thomas. - Last secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, born in Aachen on 7 April 1850, died in Rome on 13 March 1926. He studied in Bonn, Würzburg, and Cologne. Ordained a priest in 1873, he was expelled from Euskirchen, where he served as chaplain, following the *Kulturkampf*. Retiring to Rome, he entered the Dominican Order, making his profession in Graz on 17 January 1879. He taught theology in Vienna and Venlo, philosophy at Maynooth (Ireland), and canon law at Finburo in Switzerland (1891–95) and in Rome at the Minerva (1895–97). A member of various Roman congregations, he became secretary of the Congregation of the Index in 1900 and was elevated to the titular episcopal see of Sinide on 25 March 1917, the same year the congregation was suppressed.
He wrote: *U. L. Frauen Rosenberg* (Paderborn 1889; French trans., Lyon-Paris 1894); *Zur Archäologie der Paternosterchron* (Freiburg 1895); *S. Thomas monita et preces* (Paderborn 1890); *Über die Möglichkeit einer anfangslosen Schöpfung* (Munich 1895); *S. Maria dell'Anima in Rom* (Rome 1899; Italian trans., 1910); *Das Ave Maria-Läuten* (Munich 1902); *Über die allgemeine Einführung der jetzt beim Rosenkranz üblichen Betrachtungspunkte* (Magona 1906).