Benedictus Henricus Merkelbach

Benedictus Henricus Merkelbach (1871–1942) was a Belgian Dominican. He taught moral theology for many years at the Collegium Angelicum in Rome, the Dominican university that later became the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, and wrote widely on pastoral questions for confessors and clergy.

His Summa theologiae moralis, published in three volumes in the early 1930s and reprinted many times, is one of the best-known Thomist manuals of moral theology. Unlike many manuals of its time, which were organized around the commandments, it follows the order of the Secunda Pars of Thomas's Summa, treating moral life through the virtues, while giving the practical guidance confessors needed.

The library holds the first volume of the Summa theologiae moralis, on the principles of moral action: the end of human life, human acts, the passions, habits, sin and law. It is the foundation for the treatment of the virtues in the later volumes.