The famous theologian Petrus Canisius was born in Nijmegen on May 8, 1521.
Canisius was one of the most influential protagonists of the Counter Reformation in the German-speaking world. Canisius also became known as the author of three catechisms, including the “Summa doctrinae christianae” (1555) for students. The Jesuit worked in Vienna from 1552 to 1556 as a preacher as well as a teacher and reformer at the university, as confessor to the Habsburg princes, as a youth educator and as administrator of the Vienna diocese. The appointment of the Jesuit order to the University of Vienna was an important step towards the Catholic reforms of Ferdinand I, which were summarized in the so-called Reformatio nova in 1554.
