JANSSENS, ALOYSIUS. - Belgian theologian, missionary of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scheut), considered the greatest 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 set about publishing, as his fellow missionary confreres desired (whom he was never able to join in mission territory), certain manuals of dogmatics and apologetics in their language, to facilitate for them a more living contact with the sacred sciences. By the time he died, the series of his volumes already amounted to 17. The principal subjects treated are: God als Schepper (Ghent 1924); De Hl. Driwuldigheid (Antwerp 1924); Het Menschgeworden Woord (Brussels 1925); De Hl. Eucharistie (ibid. 1929); Het Mysterie der Verlossing (I, ibid. 1931; II, ibid. 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 notable, on the Assumption). His writings are distinguished by a great didactic clarity, a rich patristic documentation and a precise and very subtle judgment in controversial questions: it is not a simple work of popularization, but represents a personal approach. He also occupied himself with Anglicanism (Newman was his favourite author) and published many articles in journals on theological and pastoral subjects. He was a founding member of the «Semaines Mariologiques» at the abbey of Tongerloo, whose proceedings are collected in 12 vols.
Bibliography
Gerardo Philips