Life
Willem van Rossum was born in Zwolle, Netherlands, to Jan and Hendrika (née Veldwillems) van Rossum. He entered the Minor Seminary of Culemborg in 1867, and joined the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, more commonly known as the Redemptorists, on June 15, 1873. He made his profession as a Redemptorist on June 16, 1874.
He was ordained a priest in Wittem on October 17, 1879. He then taught Latin and rhetoric in Roermond, and was a professor of dogmatic theology at the Scholasticate of Wittem from 1883 to 1892. He became the Scholasticate's prefect of studies in 1886 and its rector in 1893.
After becoming a member of the Redemptorist community in Rome in 1895, Rossum was named a consultor to the Congregation of the Holy Office on December 25, 1896. He also became a counselor to the Commission for the Codification of Canon Law on April 15, 1904. He served as general consultor of the Redemptorists from 1909 to 1911.
In 1911 Pope Pius X made him Cardinal-Deacon of San Cesareo in Palatio, the first Dutch cardinal since the Protestant Reformation. In 1914 he became president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. In 1915 he was named head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, one of the three tribunals of the Roman Curia and was also raised to the rank of Cardinal Priest, with the titular church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. He was appointed titular bishop of Caesarea in Mauretania and Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of the Peoples.
He participated in the papal conclaves that elected Pope Benedict XV and Pope Pius XI.
Van Rossum died on 30 August 1932 in a Maastricht hospital, after falling ill on returning from a visit to Denmark, and was buried first in the Witten cemetery, but later in the Redemptorist church in Wittem.
Read more about this topic: Willem Marinus Van Rossum
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