LA TAILLE, MAURICE de. - Jesuit theologian, b. at Semblançay (Indre-et-Loire) on 30 Nov. 1872, d. at Paris on 23 Oct. 1933. He entered the Society at Canterbury (1890), studied philosophy at Jersey, theology at Paris and Lyons. Ordained priest at Tours in 1901. A pupil of Fathers Bainvel, De Grandmaison, Harent and Le Bachelet, he immediately devoted himself to theological studies. Professor of dogmatic theology at the Catholic faculty of Angers (1905-16), in 1919 he was called to the Gregorian University, where his gifts as a brilliant and penetrating expositor were widely appreciated.
A theologian of keen intellect and wide learning, from 1904 onwards he began the series of numerous articles which appeared in the leading reviews, especially in Études, in which he vigorously attacked Modernism. At the same time he matured the masterly Eucharistic work which made him famous, the *Mysterium fidei* (Paris 1921; 3rd ed. 1933). From a rapid acquaintance with the Epistle to the Hebrews there took shape in his mind, in broad outline, the vast synthesis on the sacrifice of Christ and of the Church, which in a decade of intense labour he documented with extraordinary erudition. Written in elegant Latin (sometimes too polished), constructed with an inner logic to which the author subordinates the manifold wealth of texts, rich in suggestive intuitions, pervaded by a current of deep mysticism, the ample volume (1300 cols.) imposed itself on the admiration of many and the attention of all (for the content of the work, V. MESSA). It should be noted that the rest of his too brief life (his health was extremely delicate and frequently prevented him from completing the courses he had begun with great enthusiasm) he devoted to the defence and clarification of his sacrificial ideas (which were strongly attacked from various quarters) in learned articles in the *Gregorianum*, the *Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses* and elsewhere. He popularized the central idea of the *Mysterium fidei* in the sparkling pages of *Esquisse du mystère de la Foi, suivie de quelques éclaircissements* (Paris 1924) and in a dense exposition in M. Brillant, *Eucharistia, Encyclopédie populaire sur l'Eucharistie* (Paris 1934, pp. 151-206). The original article *Actuation créée par acte incréé* (in *Recherches de science religieuse*, 18 [1928], pp. 253-68) led some to think that de la Taille was preparing another major work on Grace, which would have borne the title *Mysterium Caritatis*. After the Vatican Council no work perhaps has so deeply influenced the development of Eucharistic theology as the *Mysterium fidei*.