WERNZ, FRANZ XAVER. - Canonist, 25th general of the Society of Jesus, b. at Rottweil (Württemberg) on 4 Dec. 1842, d. at Rome on 19 Aug. 1914.
Having entered the Order in 1857, he was for 31 years professor of canon law at Ditton-Hall and St. Beuno's (1875-1882), then at Rome, at the Gregorian University (1882-1906), where he was also rector from 1904 to 1906, when he was elected general of the Society (8 Sept.). Highly esteemed for his clarity, depth, prudent moderation and unshakable justice, from 1886 he was a consultor of the Roman Congregations of the Council, of the Holy Office, of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, and later a member of the Commission for the codification of Canon Law. Wider fame, still enduring, was procured for him by the work that 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]): through its orderly division, its copious and erudite treatment, the wealth and variety of information drawn from the history of the canons, from the philosophy of law and from related sciences, many of his suggestions and formulations live again in the CIC.
As general, he promoted the spiritual and interior life of the Society and its various external activities of study (new chairs and new norms at the Gregorian University, assiduous concern for the Biblical Institute, created by Pius X, so that it might correspond to its high purpose, new periodicals of high 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 constant tenacity in order to keep it far from his own, shielding them against every levity of mind and the following of rash novelties. His in particular was the new mission of Japan, which he regarded as almost the legitimate heir of the ancient one, fertilized by the blood of so many martyrs. Nor did tribulations and anguish fail him, for he saw the Society persecuted in France, Spain and Portugal, and himself and his own made the target of adversaries and false brothers, as though they were faint-hearted and little docile to the authority of the Church in the question of modernism.
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