Vatican City, Feb 9, 2011 / 12:25 pm
To spread the Gospel, a believer needs a personal relationship with Jesus, an upright moral life, and a good prayer life, Pope Benedict XVI said Feb. 9.
Speaking to some 5,000 people gathered in Paul VI Hall for his weekly general audience, the Pope continued his series on the “doctors of the Church,” those saints whose teachings are held by the Church to be especially important for Catholics.
He spoke on 16th-century saint and doctor, St. Peter Canisius. He was remembered in particular by the Pope for the task entrusted to him of “revitalizing” Germany after the Protestant Reformation.
Canisius was born in Nijmegen, Holland in 1521 and was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1546. He ministered and taught at civil and Church institutions in what is now Germany and Austria. He led the Jesuit presence throughout Germany and created a network of communities from which the counter-Reformation sprang.