CALATAYUD, PEDRO de. - Spanish Jesuit and ascetical writer, born at Tafalla (Navarre) on 1 Aug. 1689, died at Bologna on 27 Feb. 1773. After a period of teaching, from 1728 onward he devoted himself entirely to preaching to the clergy and the people, becoming famous throughout the Iberian peninsula. He had to leave it in 1767, when the Society of Jesus was expelled from Spain.
Among his many works, noteworthy are: Incendios de amor sagrado (Murcia 1734), through which C. was among the first promoters of devotion to the Sacred Heart in Spain; Práctica de la vida dulce y racional del cristiano (Valencia 1734); Juicio de los sacerdotes, doctrina práctica y anatomía de sus conciencias (ibid. 1736); Doctrinas prácticas... para desenredar y dirigir las conciencias (2 vols., ibid. 1737 and 1739): this is among C.'s best works and enables us to form an idea of his spirituality, which blends personal experience with the ascetical and mystical teaching of the great Spanish writers of the period; Sentencias varias, sacadas de los profetas y de los libros de la Sagrada Escritura (Salamanca 1742); Catecismo práctico (Valladolid 1747); El magisterio de la fe y de la razón (Seville 1760), etc.