FRANCESCO MARIA da BRUXELLES. - Capuchin theologian of the Flemish-Belgian province, born in Bruxelles in 1665, died in Gand on 18 October 1713. He entered religious life at Lovanio in 1682, and subsequently became definitor and commissary general.
As lecturer in theology, he provided the schools of the Order with a Cursus theologiae tripartitus secundum dogmata Augustini, Bonaventurae ac Thomae (3 vols., Gand 1698-1701, reissued at Bruxelles in 1744); he reworked it into a 2nd edition, printed posthumously under the title Theologia Capuccino-seraphica (ibid. 1705-1707, and ibid. 1715-18); in this work he sought to enhance the sources of the Order’s traditional theology. He combated Jansenist and anti-papal doctrines in the Synopsis apocalyptica-cantatrix eventuum praecipiorum Ecclesiae primitivae (ibid. 1710). As commissary general (1709), he pacified the province, which had been disturbed by internal dissensions.