WERNZ, FRANZ XAVER. — Canon lawyer, 25th Superior General of the Society of Jesus, born in Rottweil (Württemberg) on 4 December 1842, died in Rome on 19 August 1914.
He entered the Order in 1857 and was professor of canon law for 31 years at Ditton Hall and St. Buenos (1875–1882), then in Rome, at the Gregorian University (1882–1906), where he was also rector from 1904 to 1906, when he was elected Superior General of the Society (8 September). Highly esteemed for his clarity, profundity, prudent moderation, and steadfast justice, from 1886 he was a consultor to the Roman Sacred Congregations of the Council, of the Holy Office, and of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, and later a member of the Commission for the codification of Canon Law. He gained an even greater and still enduring reputation through his work, which became a classic, Jus decretalium (6 vols., Rome 1898–1914; now adapted to the CIC by Fathers P. Vidal and F. Aguirre [Jus canonicum, 7 vols., Rome 1928–37]): because of its orderly division, its extensive and learned treatment, and its wealth of details and information drawn from the history of the canons, the philosophy of law, and related sciences, many of his suggestions and formulations live on in the CIC.
As Superior General, he promoted the spiritual and interior life of the Society and its various external activities in the field of study (new chairs and new regulations at the Gregorian University, assiduous concern for the Biblical Institute, founded by Pius X, so that it might fulfill its lofty purpose, new periodicals for advanced popularization, effective protection of the Monumenta historica Soc. Jesu) and of the apostolate (spiritual exercises, Marian congregations, and the Sodality of the Good Death). He opposed modernism with strong and steadfast determination, keeping it far from his subjects and guarding them against every levity of spirit and adherence to rash novelties. The new mission of Japan was especially his undertaking; he regarded it as almost the legitimate heir of the ancient mission, fertilized by the blood of so many martyrs. Nor was he spared trials and anguish, for he saw the Society persecuted in France, Spain, and Portugal, and himself and his subjects targeted by adversaries and false brothers, as though they were weak and insufficiently docile to the authority of the Church in the question of modernism.