BELLUGA Y MONCADA, LUIS ANTONIO

BELLUGA Y MONCADA, LUIS ANTONIO. - Spanish cardinal and theologian, b. at Motril in 1662, d. in Rome in 1743. He founded the Congregation of the Oratory in Córdoba. Bishop of Cartagena (1705), captain general and viceroy of Valencia, he raised a battalion of 4000 men to fight against the rebels of Murcia,

partisans of the Archduke of Austria. When Pope Clement XI recognized the latter as King of Spain, however, he sided with the Holy See (1709), and with a memorial to Philip V sought to induce him to desist from reprisals against Rome, concerned lest the already disordered religious situation of his country be aggravated (1712). For the reform of ecclesiastical discipline, in 1723 he prompted the bull Apostolici ministerii, called the "Bellugana" bull. Created cardinal, in 1724 he resigned his bishopric and retired to Rome, where he continued to work on behalf of religion and his homeland as protector of the Spanish nation. He wrote many dissertations in defense of the Holy See, its rights, and the infallibility of the Pope. There also remain by him 2 vols. of pastoral letters and various manuscripts preserved in Rome and Madrid.