MERSCH, EMILE. — Jesuit theologian, born on 30 July 1890 at Marche (Belgian Luxembourg), died on 23 May 1940 at Lens (France). In 1920 he became professor of philosophy at Namur, where he remained until 1935. Although this teaching was contrary to his inclinations, he carried it out conscientiously; its fruits were the interesting volume L'obligation morale principe de liberté (Louvain 1927) and several articles.
While still a student, he had conceived an extensive theological synthesis in the light of the Mystical Body: his whole life was devoted to realizing this project. After a decade of painstaking research (he followed the rigorous method of P. De Ghellinck), he had completed the work that was to bring him widespread fame: Le corps mystique de Christ, Etudes de théologie historique (2 vols., Louvain 1933), which received a 2nd ed. in 1936 and an English translation in the United States (Milwaukee 1938). With extraordinary erudition, he traces in it the historical and doctrinal development of the Mystical Body, from the earliest references in the Old Testament to the latest expressions of the Church’s magisterium. The present-day fervor of positive research on the subject is due in large part to these volumes. Yet this work was only a stage on the way to his goal: he reached it through personal meditations, reflected in many inspired articles published in the Nouvelle revue théologique and elsewhere. Struck down while exercising his priestly charity during an air raid, he showed that he had lived what he taught in the posthumous work La théologie du corps mystique (2 vols., Louvain 1946), which confers upon the valiant author the unmistakable character of a theologian of the Mystical Body. One may disagree with M.’s positions on certain points, but one cannot set aside this powerful synthesis, which is a new sign of the vitality of Catholic theology.