REIFFENSTUEL, ANACLETO. - Canonist and theologian of the Order of Friars Minor, born at Tegernsee in Bavaria on 2 July 1641, died at Frisinga on 5 Oct. 1703. He taught philosophy, theology, and canon law in the Order’s internal schools, obtaining the title of emeritus lector. From 1683 he held the chair of canon law at the public University of Frisinga.
He distinguished himself by his profound juridical learning; he secured his fame with the very well-known Ius canonicium universum (Frisinga 1700–14 and subsequent editions; vols. IV and V are posthumous, as is the short treatise De Regulis iuris, first published as an appendix to the Ingolstadt edition of 1733), which earned him the title of prince of the canonists of his time and an eminent place among the most celebrated treatise writers of every age. A compendium of this treatise for school use exists (Paris 1853).
R. is also very well known among moral theologians for his classic Theologia moralis (Monaco 1692), which, during his lifetime, achieved a very wide circulation and in a short time ran to more than 30 editions in Germany and abroad. In this field he rendered great service to the systematic treatise method. He professed probabilism, but after his death his treatise was adapted to the probabilism of Fr. Flaviano Ricci da Cimbria, by command of the superiors of the Order.