Lacroix, Claude
LACROIX, CLAUDE
Jesuit moral theologian; b. Dahlem, Luxembourg, April 7, 1652; d. Cologne, June 1 or 2, 1714. He entered the Society of Jesus at Trier in 1673 and was ordained in 1684. For three years he taught philosophy at Cologne, and then taught moral theology at Münster and Cologne. His great work Theologia moralis (8 v. Cologne 1707–14) was a commentary on the Medulla theologiae moralis of Hermann busenbaum and itself became one of the outstanding theological works of the 18th century. It went through 25 editions in 50 years and won for Lacroix the reputation of being one of the finest moralists of his age. One of the later editions (1757), however, served as a focal point of the opposition of the Jansenists to the Jesuits and was condemned by the parliament of Paris and publicly burned at Toulouse.
Bibliography: c. sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Brussels-Paris 1890–1932) 4:1347–54. h. hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae (Innsbruck 1903–13) 4:911. p. bernard, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris 1903–50) 8.2:2424.
[j. c. willke]