HARTMANN, ANASTASIUS, VEN.

Baptized Alois; bishop, missionary to India; b. Altwis, Lucerne canton, Switzerland, Feb. 20, 1803; d. Patna, Bihar, India, April 24, 1866. He joined the Capuchins at Baden, Germany (1821) and was ordained in 1825. After acting as novice master and teaching philosophy and theology in Switzerland and Rome, he left for India as a missionary, arriving at Agra in 1844. Appointed first vicar apostolic of Patna (1845), he was active in securing additional missionaries and building new schools in Patna and in the Bombay vicariate, to which he was transferred (1849). After obtaining approval for dividing the vicariate by the separation of Poona from Bombay (1854), Hartmann returned to Rome as an adviser on India to the Congregation of Propaganda (1856–58). Having helped to establish the first Capuchin foundation in the U.S. in 1857, he served as the Roman director of Capuchin missions (1858–60). He returned to Patna as vicar apostolic (1860) and helped to promote Church expansion by building new churches and orphanages. In 1865 he successfully sought exemption for Catholics from the Christian Marriage Act. Hartmann's writings included a Hindustani catechism (1853) and New Testament (1864), and two works on pastoral psychology (1907, 1932). The cause for his beatification was introduced in 1906. He was declared venerable on Dec. 21, 1998.

Bibliography: r. streit and j. dindinger, Bibliotheca missionum (Freiburg 1916) 8:134–139. a. jann, Monumenta Anastasiana, 5 v. (Lucerne 1939–48); Die Autobiographie des A. Hartmann (Ingenbohl 1917). w. bÜhlmann, Pionier der Einheit: Bischof Anastasius Hartmann (Zürich 1966). e. eberle, Anastasius Hartmann: ein grosser Missionsbischof aus dem Kapuzinerorden (9th ed., Freiburg, Switz. 1974). fulgentius of camugnano, Bishop Hartmann (Allahabad, India 1946; rev. ed 1966). l. fÄh, "Die Bibelübersetzungs-Arbeit von Bischof A. Hartmann 1803–66," Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft 20 (1964) 1–9. Lexicon Capuccinum (Rome 1951) 724–726. j. h. gense, The Church at the Gateway of India, 1720–1960 (Bombay 1960).

[e. r. hambye/eds.]