Litz, Damian
LITZ, DAMIAN
Marianist educator and columnist for various Catholic newspapers, whose teaching and writing influenced many German-speaking Catholics in the U.S.; b. Eschenbach, Baden, Germany, Aug. 15, 1822; d. San Antonio, TX., Feb. 24, 1903. He entered the Society of Mary in 1844 in France (see marianists). Five years later he volunteered with three other brothers, Andrew Edel, Maximin Zehler, and John Stintzi, to pioneer the educational work of the Society of Mary in America. For more than half a century he established or consolidated schools conducted by his congregation in ten of the principal cities in the U.S. At St. Michael's in Baltimore, MD, Litz began a 35-year apostolate of the press, a supplementary work of zeal and instruction. His articles for the German Catholic Volkszeitung of Baltimore were so much in demand that Catholic papers in Philadelphia, PA; Cincinnati, Ohio; and later in San Antonio, carried his weekly column. Published under the title Unter Uns, they helped spread his literary fame.
Bibliography: j. e. garvin, The Centenary of the Society of Mary (Dayton 1917). j. w. schmitz, The Society of Mary in Texas (San Antonio 1951).
[j. w. schmitz]