Matthias von Schoenberg

Author, b. at Ehingen, in the Diocese of Constance, 9 Nov., 1732; d. at Munich, 20 Apr., 1792. Of his early life little is known; he entered the Society of Jesus on 15 Sept., 1750. From 1766 to 1772 he was in charge of Eleemosyna Aurea, an institution founded for the purpose of spreading among the faithful instructive books written in a style that should prove attractive and intelligible even to the unlettered. Shortly after the suppression of the Society he was chosen by the elector of Bavaria as his ecclesiastical councilor. An untiring champion of Christian morals and the Catholic religion, Schoenberg, besides compiling prayer-books and editing educational works, wrote several treatises on the fundamental truths of religion, and many devotional and meditative books and brochures designed to quicken the devotion of the people to the Blessed Virgin and the sacred Heart. So successful was he in his apostleship of the press that many of his writings — Sommervogel mentions nearly forty in all — ran through five and sic editions. The following are perhaps his best known works: “Die Zierde der Jugend”; “Der höfliche Schüler”; “Die Religionsgründe in ihren ordentlichen Zusammenhange”; “Der Santfmuthige Christ”; “Wahrheitsgründe des katholischen Hauptgrundsatzes für die Unfehlbarkeit der Kirche”.