He was a native of Holland who was received into the Society of Jesus when he was twenty-two years old. He was the great leader of the counter-Reformation against Protestants in German countries in the sixteenth century. He worked in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Bohemia and Poland. He has been made a Doctor of the Universal Church, one of the two members of the Society of Jesus to receive this honor. The other is Saint Robert Bellarmine. Saint Peter Canisius has been called “the second apostle of Germany.” The first apostle of Germany was Saint Boniface, who died in 755, and whose feast is June 5. It is Saint Peter Canisius who assures us that Saint Maternus, the son of the widow of Naim, was the first Bishop of Cologne in Germany.
Saint Peter Canisius, Anonymous painting from 1699 (source)
