ROVENIUS, PHILIP. - Filippo van Roveen, b. in 1575 in Holland, d. at Utrecht on 15 Oct. 1651, from 1607 dean of Oldenzaal and pro-vicar of the diocese of Deventer. On 11 Oct. 1614 Paul V appointed him apostolic vicar of Holland (in a certain sense the first apostolic vicar in the modern sense).
In the Consistory of 17 Aug. 1620 he was appointed titular archbishop of Philippi and confirmed as apostolic vicar of Holland and Zeeland. On 8 Sept. 1620 he was consecrated bishop at Vorsten near Brussels by the nuncio Sanseverino. During his governance the persecution against Catholics intensified, because of the Spanish war. R. in 1628, setting out from Brabant, at very great danger, visited Holland, ordaining and confirming in the country. From 1630 he lived in hiding. A court sentence of 10 March 1640 condemned him to confiscation of his goods and to exile; he managed, however, to remain hidden at Utrecht, where he died. He was buried in the house in which he had found refuge.
R., who had approved Jansenius's Augustinus, was a rigorist. He was in dispute with the missionary religious Orders, which asserted their privileges, refusing to admit the jurisdiction of the apostolic vicar. The agreement with the Jesuits of 1634 was rather a truce, although the Pope and the Propaganda insisted on its observance (Jus pontif., I, 54-59). He acquired a reputation as a theorist of the missions with the Tractatus de missionibus ad Propagandam Fidem et Conversionem Infidelium et Haereticorum instituendis (Rome 1624), republished in his Respublica christiana, Antwerp
1648. The first two editions were interdicted by the nuncio because the author did not recognize the privileges of the missionary Orders.
Bibliography3 works
Nicola Kowalsky