LAURENTIUS, JOSEPH. - Jesuit canonist, b. at Krefeld in Germany on 24 Dec. 1861, d. at Valkenburg in Holland on 22 March 1927. He entered the Society in 1879 and was ordained priest in 1891.
Having completed his studies at the Gregorian University in Rome, he was assigned the chair of canon law at the College of S. Ignazio in Valkenburg (1895). He brought to his teaching a distinctly scientific character, concision and clarity of ideas, and mastery of doctrine. Having left teaching in 1913 for reasons of health, he was for some time spiritual director, but because of the war he returned to the chair from 1916 to 1919. A consultor to the Pontifical Commission for the codification of canon law, he actively collaborated in adapting the rules of his Order and of others to the norms of the CIC. He is known above all for his Iustituciones iuris ecclesiastici, which he published in 1903 and which received an extremely favorable reception; as a complement to them, he also published a Conspectus CIC in 1919.