Étienne Bauny

Étienne Bauny (1564, Mouzon, Ardennes, France – 3 December 1649, Saint Pol de Léon) was a French Jesuit theologian.

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)