Étienne Bauny (1564, Mouzon, Ardennes, France – 3 December 1649, Saint Pol de Léon) was a French Jesuit theologian.Jean Orcibal Les origines du Jansénisme 1947 "Étienne Bauny, né en 1564 à Mouzon (Ardennes), entra en 1593 au noviciat des Jésuites. Il professa onze ans les humanités et la rhétorique,- seize ans la théologie morale et fut supérieur de Pontoise."
Life Bauny was admitted into the Society of Jesus, 20 July 1593. After teaching humanities and rhetoric, he was promoted to the chair of moral theology which he occupied for sixteen years. He was for a time superior of the Jesuit residence at Pontoise. He had the confidence of the most distinguished prelates of his age, especially of François de La Rochefoucauld, who chose him as his spiritual director, and of René de Rieux, Bishop of Léon, who entrusted to him the settlement of the most delicate affairs of his episcopate.
Many of Bauny's Jansenist contemporaries criticized him as too lenient. Blaise Pascal cited Bauny as an example of lax Jesuit morality in his Provincial Letters, and Antoine Arnauld voiced similar accusations. His opinions on Catholic probabilism were critiqued by contemporary Franciscan theologian Bernardino Ciaffoni.
He died in the odour of sanctity, almost in the very exercise of his apostolic ministry, at the age of eighty-five.
Works Bauny's published works are:
(Paris, 1630) (Paris, 1634) (Paris, 1640) in fol. (Paris, 1642), in fol. (Paris, 1649 But his Pratique du droi and De Sacramentis were placed on the index of forbidden books.
References
Franklin, J., The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 97–98, 288. Guilhermy, Menologe de la c. de J., Assistance de France, II, 559 Hugo von Hurter, Nomenclator, I, 494 Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la c. de J., I, col. 1058.