Peter Kanijs (Canisius) was born in Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. Against his father’s wishes, he studied theology and also earned the title of magister artium. He always kept a deep love for learning; he edited the works of Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint Leo the Great, Hosius of Córdoba, and the letters of Saint Jerome. In Mainz, under the guidance of Father Peter Faber, he made the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius and entered the Society of Jesus.
Soon he began what became his main mission: working against the Reformation, a task that filled his whole life. He carried it out with great zeal, but also with a spirit of peace and reconciliation. After being ordained a priest, he took part in the Council of Trent as theologian to Cardinal Truchsess and as an advisor to the pope himself.
Saint Ignatius called him to Rome, where Peter became the eighth Jesuit to make solemn profession. He taught theology in Bologna for a short time, but was soon sent to Germany, where he would spend thirty years in ministry. He is known as the “second apostle of Germany,” after Saint Boniface. As the first provincial of Lower Germany, he organized the Society of Jesus there and became a trusted counselor to Catholic princes of the Empire and to the popes in matters of the Counter-Reformation. As a writer, he stood out especially for his catechisms, which he prepared for people of all ages and social classes.
He spent the last seventeen years of his life in Fribourg, Switzerland, where he died at the age of seventy-six, on December 21, 1597. He was canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1925. Until the reform of the calendar, his feast was celebrated on April 27.
