Fernando Castro Palao (b. at León in 1581; d. at

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

, 1 December 1633) was a Spanish

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

theologian.

Life

At the age of fifteen, in 1596, he entered the Society of Jesus. He taught philosophy at

Valladolid Valladolid ( ; ) is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and ''de facto'' capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the pr ...

, moral theology at Compostela, and scholastic theology at

Salamanca Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...

. Later he became rector of the College of Medina, and consultor and qualificator of the

Holy Inquisition The Inquisition was a Catholic judicial procedure where the ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various medieval and reformation-era state-organized tribunals ...

. He filled these three offices until his death.

Theologian

He excelled as a moral theologian; his classes of moral theology were attended by a greater number of students than were ever known to follow the course at Compostella. His decisions were regarded as oracles, and difficult cases were submitted to him for solution.

Alphonsus Liguori Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (27 September 1696 – 1 August 1787) was an Italian Catholic bishop and saint, as well as a spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philosopher, and theologian. He founded the Congre ...

numbers him among the principal authorities on moral theology (Dissert. schol. mor., Naples, 1755, c. iv, n. 119) and Jean-Pierre Gury calls him "a probabilist, a most learned, wise, erudite, and prolific author."

Works

His "Opus Morale" comprises seven volumes, and covers in the same number of treatises, the whole field of moral theology. It appeared first at Lyon, 1631–51; its fifth edition is dated 1700. A general index to the whole work is found in the fourth volume of this last edition, and also in the third edition, which appeared at Venice in 1721. Immediately after his death (1633) there appeared at Valladolid a meditation book written by him, entitled, "Manual del Cristiano de varias consideraciones para el exercico santa de la oracion." The first part of this work contains meditations on the end of man; the second treats of the life of Christ and his Blessed Mother; the third considers God and his relationship to humanity. An English translation of a letter of Castro Palao on the death of Thomas White appeared in ''

The Month ''The Month'' was a monthly review, published from 1864 to 2001, which, for almost all of its history, was owned by the English Province of the Society of Jesus and was edited by its members. History ''The Month'', founded and edited by Frances ...

'' for 1890 (vol. 69, pp. 91–93).

References

;Attribution * The entry cites: **

Sommervogel Carlos Sommervogel (8 January 1834 – 4 March 1902) was a French Jesuit scholar. He was author of the monumental ''Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus'', which served as one of the major references for the editors of the Catholic Encyclo ...

, ''Bibliothèque de la c. de J.'' (Brussels, 1891), II. col. 867. sq.; **Müllendorff in ''

Kirchenlexikon ''Wetzer and Welte's Kirchenlexikon'' is an encyclopedic work of Catholic biography, history, and theology, first compiled by Heinrich Joseph Wetzer and Benedict Welte. The first edition in 12 volumes was published from 1847 to 1860, by Verlag H ...

'', s.v.; **

Hugo von Hurter The von Hurter family belonged to the Swiss nobility; in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries three of them were known for their conversions to Roman Catholicism, their ecclesiastical careers in Austria and their theological writings. Friedric ...

, ''Nomenclator'' (Innsbruck, 1892), I, 363. {{DEFAULTSORT:Castro Palao, Fernando 1581 births 1633 deaths 17th-century Spanish Jesuits 17th-century Spanish Roman Catholic theologians