JANSSENS, ALOISIUS. - Belgian theologian, missionary of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scheut), considered the foremost promoter of the emerging theological literature in the Flemish language. Born in 1887 at Zele, died at Louvain in 1941.
Appointed professor of dogmatics in the schools of his Congregation in 1920, he began to publish, as his fellow missionary brethren wished (whom he himself was never able to join in mission lands), several manuals of dogmatics and apologetics in their language, in order to facilitate for them a more vital contact with the sacred sciences. At his death, his series of volumes had already reached 17. The principal subjects treated were: God als Schepper (Ghent, 1924); De Hl. Driwuldigheid (Antwerp, 1924); Het Menschgeworden Woord (Brussels, 1925); De Hl. Eucharistie (there, 1929); Het Mysterie der Verlossing (I, there, 1931; II, there, 1932); Het Hl. Oliesel (Antwerp, 1939), and above all Mariology (De Hl. Maagd en Moeder Gods Maria, 4 vols.: I and II, Louvain, 1926–28; III and IV, Brussels, 1928–31; the last, the most noteworthy, on the Assumption). His writings are distinguished by great didactic clarity, rich patristic documentation, and precise and very subtle judgment in controversial questions: they are not mere works of popularization, but represent a personal orientation. He also concerned himself with Anglicanism (Newman was his favorite author) and published many journal articles on theological and pastoral subjects. He was a founding member of the «Semaines Mariologiques» at the abbey of Tongerloo, whose proceedings were collected in 12 volumes.