CASTAÑIZA, JUAN. – Spanish theologian and preacher, Benedictine, born at Villadiego (diocese of Burgos) around 1545, died at Salamanca in 1599. In 1563 he made his monastic vows in the abbey of S. Salvatore de Oña. Appointed by his superiors general preacher, he became preacher at the court of Filippo II. He was also confessor to Cardinal Quiroga and subsequently his executor.
The Combattimento spirituale cannot be attributed to C., since its authorship has been definitively claimed for Scupoli; C., however, had made a Latin translation of it for the use of novices under the title Pugna spiritualis, whence the error of attribution arose.
In 1583, at Salamanca, he published the Vita di s. Benedetto, translated from Book II of the Dialoghi of s. Gregorio, to which, in addition to the lives of ss. Mauro and Placido, is appended a noteworthy appendix on the Approbación de la Regla de s. Benito en algunos concilios... con un catálogo de los príncipes, doctores y sanctos que han ilustrado la Orden de S. Benito. In the Vita di s. Romualdo (Madrid 1597), translated into Italian and French, the author offers a clear exposition of Benedictine spirituality; moreover, his mystical doctrine is known still more fully from the notes to the edition of the works of s. Gertrude: Insinuationum divinae pietatis lib. V, in quibus vita et acta sanctae Gertrudis... confluentur. Accessere nunc denuo Exercitia ob eadem virgine composita... (Madrid 1577). The edition was subsequently translated into Spanish under the title Practica spiritualis (there 1599).