HARTMANN, Anastasius. – Titular Bishop of Derbe, b. 24 Feb. 1803 at Altwis (Hitzkirch, Lucerne), entered the novitiate of the Capuchins at Baden (Aargau) on 17 Sept. 1821; ordained priest on 24 Sept. 1825, preacher, spiritual director and novice master, lecturer in philosophy and theology, in 1841 professor of theological controversies at the missionary college of S. Fedele in Rome, of which he was vice-rector until his departure in 1843 for the mission of Agra (India).
In 1845 he was appointed first Apostolic Vicar of
Patna, where he vigorously promoted missionary activity, erecting churches, stations, schools and welfare institutions, and attending to the religious care of Irish troops and the defence of the Catholic faith against Protestant missionaries. From 1849 to 1854 he simultaneously administered the Apostolic Vicariate of Bombay, which was torn by internal factions; he successfully resisted the Indo-Portuguese schism at Goa; in 1854 he was appointed Apostolic Vicar there, and also Apostolic Administrator of Punach. His health failing, he returned to Europe in 1856; in Rome he worked with Propaganda for a general reorganization of the missions in India and contributed to negotiations for a concordat with Portugal; as temporary procurator of the missions of his Order, he reorganized their administration. In 1860 he returned to India as Apostolic Vicar of Patna, reviving this mission after recent disasters; he defended the rights of Catholic schools and in Calcutta in 1865 safeguarded the marriage laws of Christians before the British government. Exhausted by his labours, he died of cholera at his residence in Kurjee, a suburb of Patna, on 24 Apr. 1866. The cause of his beatification was introduced in 1906.
He composed many monographs on sacred, historical, linguistic and natural subjects, most of which remain in manuscript. He earned the title of “Canisius of Hindustan,” both for his activity and for the Masihi Talim, seu Catechismus hindostanus (Bombay 1852), which went through several editions, and for his translation of the New Testament into Urdu (Patna 1864). In 1850 he founded the newspaper The Bombay Catholic Examiner, in which he published his valued pastoral letters.