ESCOBAR Y MENDOZA, ANTONIO. - Jesuit, moral theologian, born at Valladolid in 1589, died there on 4 July 1669. He first displayed his talent in some literary works; but soon he devoted himself intensively to cultivating moral theology and to various exegetical works, published in the last years of his life.
His fame, however, is bound up with three important works, widely circulated and much debated, on moral theology: *Examen y práctica de confessores y penitentes en todas las materias de teología moral* (place and date of publication unknown; the 1st ed., Madrid 1650, is the 39th) in the form of a simple and popular catechism; *Liber theologiae moralis* (Lyons 1644), in which the doctrine, drawn from 23 theologians of the Society of Jesus, is that commonly held in the time in which E. was writing. It cannot, however, be denied that he is somewhat inclined to excessive leniency (he maintains, for example, the lawfulness of theft in cases of grave necessity [a proposition condemned by Innocent XI on 4 March 1679, prop. 36; Denz-U, 1186]). B. Pascal made this work the target of his attacks in the 5th and 6th of the *Lettres provinciales*; but unjustly, since he based his criticisms on passages torn from their context and worse still, misinterpreted them; *Universae theologiae moralis receptae absque lite sententiae* (7 vols., Lyons 1652-63). E. remains a great moral theologian, despite his occasional lack of precision in citations and judgments not always supported by solid arguments; he may be said to be somewhat too lenient, but not a laxist.