Franz Xavier Wernz

Franz Xavier Wernz SJ (December 4, 1842 – August 19, 1914) was the twenty-fifth Superior General of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit order). He was born in Rottweil, Württemberg (afterwards part of Germany).

Wernz was the first of the eight children of parents with deep faith and piety. From an early age he had expressed his desire to be a Jesuit, perhaps influenced by the fact that his parish church in Rottweil had been a Jesuit church before the suppression and still retained many reminders of the Society. The paintings of many Jesuit saints and the fact that the yearly parish mission was given by Jesuits had probably helped him to make the decision. He entered the society on December 5, 1857, made his novitiate at Gorheim near Sigmaringen, and took his first Vows on December 8, 1859. From 1864-1868 and from 1872-1873 he was educator and teacher at Stella Matutina (Jesuit School) in Feldkirch, Austria. He studied theology and philosophy at the Maria Laach and Aachen abbeys. When the Kulturkampf of Chancellor Bismarck expelled the Jesuits from Germany, the exiled scholastics, after a short stay at Stella Matutina, found refuge in a Jesuit college, Ditton Hall in Lancashire in England and, finally, in 1881 moved to St Beuno's in Wales. After a year of private study he became Professor of Canon Law at Ditton Hall and later at St Beuno's. Between 1882 and 1906 he taught canon law at the Gregorian University, the last two years spent there he also served as its rector.