ASTETE, GASPAR. – Distinguished Spanish catechist, born in Salamanca around 1537; he entered the Society of Jesus in 1555. He was master of novices and rector of the Colleges of Burgos and Villimar; he died in Burgos in 1601.
He left ascetical works: Institución y guía de la juventud cristiana (2 vols., Burgos 1572–94), continued by a Tratado del gobierno de la familia (2 vols., there 1597–98). But his name remains above all associated with the Cate-
cismo de la doctrina cristiana, one of the two catechisms most widely used in Spain down to the present day (A. in the north and Ripalda in the south). Editions and reprints number in the hundreds in Spain (many also in Basque) and in Spanish America; translations into indigenous languages were likewise made in the missions.