ESSER, THOMAS. - Last secretary of the S. Congregation of the Index, born at Aachen on 7 Apr. 1850, died 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 chaplain, as a result of the « Kulturkampf ». Retiring to Rome, he entered the Dominican Order, making his profession at Gratz on 17 Jan. 1879. He taught theology at Vienna and 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 Sinide on 25 March 1917, when that congregation itself was suppressed.
He wrote: U. L. Frauen Rosenkranz (Paderborn 1889; French trans., Lyons-Paris 1894); Zur Archäologie der Paternauerscheur (Fribourg 1898); S. Thomas monita et preces (Paderborn 1890); Über die Möglichkeit einer aufanglosen Schöpfung (Munich 1895); S. Maria dell'Anima in Rom (Rome 1899; Italian trans., ibid. 1906); Das Axe Maria-Läuten (Munich 1902); Über die allmündliche Einführung der Jetzt beim Rosenkranz üblichen Betrachtungspunkte (Mainz 1906).