GRANDERATH, THEODOR. - Jesuit, canonist, and historian, b. at Giesenkirche (Rhineland) on 19 June 1839, d. at Valkenburg (Dutch Limburg) on 19 March 1902. He was professor at Ditton-Hall College (England), first of canon law (1874-1876) and then of dogmatics and apologetics (1876-87).
Having moved to Exaeten (Holland) to complete the Collectio Lacensis founded by Fr. G. Schneemann, he published its seventh and final volume: Acta et decreta Sancti Oecumenici Concili Vaticani (Freiburg im Br. 1890). Thereafter devoting himself to studies on this Council, he wrote: Constitutiones dogmaticae SS. Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani ex ipsis eius actis explicatae atque illustratae (ibid. 1892); and, having moved to Rome, where Leo XIII placed the Vatican Archives at his disposal, he composed his principal work: Geschichte des Vatikanischen Concils von seiner ersten Ankündigung bis zu seiner Vertagung nach den authentischen Dokumenten (3 vols., ibid. 1903-1906, posthumous, edited by Fr. K. Kirch, who also completed the last volume; French trans., 3 vols. in 6 parts, Brussels 1907-10, with an appendix of documents [ibid. 1914]). The work, a direct and meticulous study of the sources, also makes use of first-rate documents concerning the troubled and hostile atmosphere surrounding the Council’s work, and answers and refutes the suspicions and intrigues of its opponents. Meanwhile, for many years he contributed important articles on theology and law to the periodicals Stimmen aus Maria Laach (1874-99) and Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie (1881-96).