JANSSENS, HENRI (see LAURENT)
Benedictine theologian, b. at St-Nicolas (Wales) in Belgium, 2 July 1855, d. at Scheut-lez-Bruxelles, 17 Jan. 1925. Of distinguished family, he entered the Seminary of Ghent in 1874; two years later he was sent to the Belgian College in Rome, where he was formed under Franzelin and Palmieri. After ordination he became a Benedictine at Maredsous (1881) and after several years of teaching theology and literature returned to Rome (1893) as professor of dogmatics at the Anselmian Athenaeum. He subsequently held important positions in the Roman Curia: secretary of the Biblical Commission, of the Commission for the Vulgate, and of the Sacred Congregation of Religious; he resigned from the latter office in 1910. In 1921 he was consecrated titular bishop of Tiberias.
Principal works: *La Confirmation* (Lille 1888); *Au pays du Messie* (Bruges 1921); *Summa theologica ad modum commentarii in Aquinatis Summam praesentis aevi studiis aptatam* (9 vols., Freiburg im Br. 1909–21). This is a rich commentary on the individual articles of St Thomas’s *Summa*, around which biblical and patristic passages are grouped and harmonized with the doctrine of Aquinas and his best interpreters.