GRAFFIIS, GIACOMO DE

Image from page 600
Image from page 600

GRAFFIIS, Giacomo de. - Moral theologian, b. at Capua in 1548, d. there on 19 Oct. 1620. He entered the Benedictine Order at Naples, where, having taken degrees in *utroque iure*, he served as penitentiary and ecclesiastical censor and spent his life there, except for a brief interval when he was master of novices at Venice.

Almost all his works are of a casuistic nature, among which the most noteworthy are the *Decisiones aureae casuum conscientiae* (I, Venice 1591; II, ibid. 1595), with an appendix (Bologna 1603) and *Additamenta* (Venice 1610); *Consilia seu Responsa casuum conscientiae* (ibid. 1604); *Practica casuum s. Pontifici reservatorum...* (Naples 1609); *De arbitriis confessariorum* (ibid. 1613). He also wrote oratorical works, besides a theological work (*De potestate papae*) which remained unpublished.

As a moralist he ranks among the most esteemed of the 17th century.

BIBL.: Hurter, III, cols. 600-601; B. Heurtebize, s. V. in DThC, VI, cols. 1601-92; D. M. Prümmer, *Manuale theol. moralis*, I, Freiburg in B. 1931, p. 23.