CASANOVAS, IGNASI. – Jesuit, born at Santpedor (Catalonia) on 13 August 1872; in 1888 he entered the novitiate at Veruela. After his years of formation (1888–1905), he spent his entire life in Barcelona in the apostolate among the educated classes.
He began by giving series of apologetic and social conferences, later collected in volumes: La religión natural (Barcelona 1907); Teoria de la revelació (there 1908); Nuestro estado social (there 1910); Acción de la mujer en la acción social (there 1911 and 1914). At that time he also wrote on Catalan linguistics and aesthetics and paved the way for his future works on Giacomo Balmes, his great inspiration and model (L'apologetica de Balmes, there 1910; Reliquias literarias de Balmes, there 1910). He also translated from Catalan into Spanish the Cartas pastorales of the distinguished bishop of Vich, José Torres y Bages (3 vols., Barcelona 1913). From these years onward, Fr. C. played a decisive part in the development of the «Foment di pietat catalana», recently founded by the priest Eudaldo Serra and transformed in 1916 into an independent religious publishing house. In 1923 he completed it by opening the «Biblioteca Balmes» to promote ecclesiastical studies and prepare the way for a Catholic institute; in 1925 he gave this library its periodical organ, Analecta sacra Tarraconensia, alongside series of more extensive studies (Biblioteca historica de la Biblioteca Balmes, etc.), which he extensively nourished with his own works.
From about 1916 onward, Fr. C.’s literary production assumed a predominantly historical and ascetical character. His hagiographical works are above all penetrating psychological studies: S. Alonso Rodríguez (anonymous, Barcelona 1917; Italian translation by Fr. St. Orzechowski: La vita e lo spirito di s. Alfonso Rodríguez, Rome 1918); S. Ignasi de Loyola (Barcelona 1922; in Spanish, Madrid 1930); La madre Pilar Barras, carmelita de la Caridad (Vich 1920); L'anima de s. Teresa de Jesús Infant (Barcelona 1929). The fruit of many years of preparation was the edition of the Obras completas del dr. D. Jaime Balmes (Barcelona, biblioteca historica de la biblioteca Balmes, 33 vols., 1925–27), and the substantial monograph: Balmes, la seva vida, el seu temps, les seves obres (3 vols., there 1932). Research into Catalan culture in the eighteenth century, the prehistory of Balmesian thought, led to a Josep Finestres: estudis biografics (Barcelona 1932, plus two vols. of Epistolari, 1933–34); other monographs on the subject were interrupted by events. For the «Foment di pietat catalana», Fr. C. produced a Biblioteca de Exercicis espiritualis (11 vols., Barcelona 1930–36), which contains one of the finest and most extensive modern commentaries on the book of St. Ignatius. In hiding in Barcelona at the beginning of the Marxist revolution, he was arrested and murdered by the anarchists in September 1936, crowning with martyrdom a life of rare fecundity. His foundations survived (taking the name «Balmesiana») and continued to exert a great influence on ecclesiastical culture in this part of Spain. «Balmesiana» began in 1942 an omnibus edition, entirely in Spanish and in 18 volumes, of Fr. C.’s principal works.