FAUST, MATHÍAS

Franciscan administrator; b. Oberbimbach, Germany, Dec. 30, 1879; d. New York City, July 27, 1956. Faust's parents, Joseph and Clara (Voelinger) Faust, had him baptized Constantine. He studied at Fulda and Hereveld, Holland, before immigrating to the U.S. in 1896, where he entered the novitiate of the Friars Minor at Paterson, N.J., and was ordained in 1906. Thereafter he served his order, first as novice master, then 12 years as provincial minister, and eight years as assistant provincial. During this time he sent missionaries to China and to the southern part of the U.S., encouraged higher education in the schools of his province, and secured many rare books and manuscripts for his friaries. He was frequently appointed visitator general for other provinces in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico, to which he assigned his own priests to help minister to the people there. He showed a vital interest in the secular Third Order of St. Francis and strongly supported the foundation of St. Anthony Guild in Paterson, N.J., for the publication of religious works. In 1945 he founded the Academy of American Franciscan History, Washington, D.C., and formed a Commissariate for the Byzantine-Slavonic rite in Connecticut. During World War II, he was delegate general for all Franciscan houses in North and Central America and for four years thereafter was procurator general in Rome. He spent the last four years of his career in New York directing the commissariates of his order in North America.

Bibliography: Acta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum 75 (1956) 247–248. a. j. callahan, Medieval Francis in Modern America (New York 1936).

[e. klaus]