LUGO, JUAN de. - Cardinal and Jesuit theologian, b. in Madrid on 25 Nov. 1583, d. in Rome on 20 Aug. 1660. His family was noble and habitually resided in Seville, where he returned in 1588.
A pupil of the Jesuits, he entered the Society at Villagarcía (1603). After completing his studies at Pamplona and Salamanca, he taught philosophy at Monforte de Lemos (1612-13), at Medina del Campo (1613-14) and at León (1614-16), then theology at Salamanca (1617) and at Valladolid (1617-21). Summoned to Rome by the general Muzio Vitelleschi, he held the chair of dogmatics at the Collegio Romano from 1621 to 1643, the year in which he was created cardinal by Urban VIII.
Already from 1633 L. had begun his publications; the first work printed were the Disputationes scholasticae de Incarnatione dominica (Lyons 1633), then those
De Sacramentis in genere, de venerabili Eucharistiae Sacramento et de sacrosancto Missae sacrificio (ibid. 1636), De virtute et Sacramento Poenitentiae, de suffragiis et indulgentiis (ibid. 1638), in which he revealed his strength as a speculative theologian, while in the De iustitia et iure (ibid. 1642) he established himself as a moralist. Even today this work is regarded as a model of its kind, and St. Alphonsus (Theol. mor., III, 552) judged from it that L. was the prince of moralists after St. Thomas. Also to be remembered: De virtute fidei divinae (Lyons 1646) and Responsorum moralium libri VI (ibid. 1651). Several of his writings appeared posthumously, among them the De Deo, de angelis, de actibus humanis, de divina Gratia (Cologne 1716), until all his writings were collected in Opera omnia (7 vols., Venice 1718; then in 8 vols., Paris 1868-69). Several, however, remained in manuscript.
The works of L., in their imposing whole, offer new and ingenious solutions, many of which have passed into common possession, while some (e.g., on the essence of the sacrifice of the Mass and on the formal motive of faith) have remained his own.
As cardinal he worked in many Congregations, esteemed by the popes Urban VIII, Innocent X and Alexander VII. The condemnation of the propositions of Jansenius drawn from the Augustinus was carried out with the censures he proposed (const. Cum occasione of 31 May 1653 and Ad sacram beati Petri sedem of 16 Oct. 1656). L. was a benefactor of the Collegio Romano, in which he established scholarships for poor students, and which, together with the Casa professa del Gesù, he left as heir of his possessions. To him is also due the introduction into Europe of cinchona (pulvis iesuiticus). L.'s body, by his own wish, lies in the church of the Gesù in Rome, at the feet of St. Ignatius.
Bibliography7 works
Arnaldo M. Lanz