Henricus Andreas Poels (Venray, Feb. 14, 1868 - Heerlen, Sept. 7, 1948) was a Dutch Roman Catholic priest and theologian and was born into a well-to-do peasant family. Bible Study After studies at Rolduc and Roermond, he was ordained a priest at the age of 23. After further studies at Leuven in Bible Science, he received his doctorate in theology there in 1894. He was destined to become professor of Bible Science at the major seminary of his diocese but was suspected of modernist sympathies. The reluctant Bishop Josephus Drehmanns of Roermond was no match for the much more powerful figure of Bishop Caspar Josefus Martinus Bottemanne of Haarlem. The professorship for Poels fell through. The even more honorable membership in the Pontifical Bible Commission, which the young Poels was almost already assured of, also passed him by. During the railroad strike of 1903, Dr. Poels was very active as a chaplain in Venlo, for which he was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau. One more time Poels tried his hand at a professorship in exegesis, at Washington D.C.'s Catholic University. He taught there between 1904 and 1910 and was then dismissed. Underlying this was an article by Poels in which he (not the first) challenged the belief prevalent in RC theology that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible; he argued that those books must have been written by multiple authors and edited far and wide after Moses' time. Forty years later, Poels' conviction, by the way, was widely accepted in Catholic circles. Mining It was somewhat of a blessing in disguise: now that Poels' role was played out in exegesis, Bishop Drehmanns appointed him chaplain in the mining region in 1910. Social life in Limburg was organized by Poels and his followers according to a rigid Catholic hierarchical-clerical model. Poels had also shown himself to be a powerful, social leader in Venlo at the time, and he would remain so until shortly before the war. To combat the housing shortage in the mining region, he founded Ons Limburg, an umbrella organization for local housing associations, on July 3, 1911, with the support of the State Mines. In 1913 he was appointed head chaplain of Labor in the mining district. He also remained very active in the founding of various organizations. Poels stimulated the foundation of community centers in the mining district. Together with the then director of the school for social work in Sittard, Willy Hillen, and the public health inspector, L. Veeger, he stood at the cradle of the Foundation Onze Buurthuizen. Through his contacts with the State Mines and the mayors in the area, he obtained the necessary support to realize these community facilities. When Troelstra made statements in 1918 that almost led to a national revolution (Troelstra's mistake), Poels was one of the first to oppose him. In the years that followed, Poels was distinguished many times by state and Church. In the 1930s he took a stand time and again against National Socialism and sympathizing organizations such as the NSB. In 1939 he resigned as head chaplain of social works. Karel Roncken succeeded him. During World War II, he stayed in Switzerland. He spent his last days of life in the convent of the Medical Missionaries at Imstenrade below Heerlen, where he died. He was buried four days later in his native Venray.