FALCONI, JUAN, venerable. - Mercedarian, born at Fifiana in 1596, died in 1638. He was a professor at Segovia and Alcalà.
In his writings Cartilla para saber leer en Cristo, Vida de Dios, Memento de la Misa, El pan nuestro de cada día (all published posthumously; for the editions cf. Dudon, pp. IX-X), F. advocates, when meditation is impossible, the contemplative method; total resignation to the will of God can replace the discursive method. Accused of belonging to the sect of the Alumbados, he had to clear himself in 1629. F.'s writings enjoyed enormous success among
Molinos and the Italian Quietists; editions of the Alfabeto per saper leggere in Christo are recorded at Lecce in 1660, and at Rome in 1665, 1669, and 1680.
On 1 April 1688 the following Italian translations were condemned by the Holy Office (in addition to the aforementioned Alfabeto): Letter written to a spiritual daughter, in which he teaches her the purest and most perfect spirit of prayer; Letter written to a religious in defence of the manner of prayer in pure faith taught by him. Probably the Italian translations were placed on the Index not because of the doctrine itself, but because of the danger that a false reading might entail by increasing the Quietist blaze of the second half of the seventeenth century.