LACROIX, CLAUDE. - Jesuit, distinguished moralist, b. at Dahlem (Luxembourg) on 7 April 1652, d. at Cologne on 1-2 June 1714. He taught philosophy for three years at Cologne; then moral theology at Münster, whence he moved to the same teaching post at Cologne.
His name is linked to his splendid Theologia moralis (8 vols., Cologne 1797-14), in which he follows the celebrated Medulla of Fr. H. Busembaum, but greatly expanding and commenting on it, with exquisite order, ample information, sound doctrine, practical experience and clarity of solutions. For these qualities the work went through many editions (25 in less than 50 years) and became the most sought-after text.
The Lyon edition of 1729, edited by Fr. F. Montauzon, who made several additions to it, reprinted in 1757, gave the Jansenists the urge to denounce various propositions of the author on regicide and homicide, exploited as an incitement to crime; so that the work was burned in public, and burned likewise in 1758 was the writing of Fr. A. Zaccaria: Apologie de la théologie morale des pp. Busembaum et Lacroix Jésuites (s. l. 1758). This apology, however, is irrefutable, and L.'s work continues to have its value. The best and most complete editions, and also, as regards the decrees of the Holy See, updated, are: that of A. Zaccaria (6 vols., Ravenna 1761) and that of P. Dion (4 vols., Paris 1874-75).