MEDINA, MIGUEL. – Franciscan theologian, born at Belalcazar (Cordova) in 1489, died at Toledo on 1 May 1578. He studied and subsequently taught Sacred Scripture at the University of Alcalá. In 1562 he was sent by Filippo II to the Council of Trent, where he defended the doctrine of indulgences and ecclesiastical celibacy, and where, at the request of the legate cardinals, he began a refutation of the Magdeburg Centuries. In 1571 he was elected, in Rome, general definitor of the Order.
He engaged in a prolonged controversy with Domenico Soto, O. P., who, in the Annotationes (Salamanca 1554), had censured the doctrine of the Franciscan Giovanni Wild (Ferus), writing the Apolageticum locorum quorumdam J. Peri (Alcalá 1558). Soto replied, and M. responded, attempting a general rehabilitation of Wild. Denounced before the Inquisition of Toledo, he was imprisoned for the entire duration of his lengthy trial (1572–78). Already gravely ill, he was taken back to the Convent of S. Juan de los Reyes, where he died. After his death he was rehabilitated by the Holy Office, and his Apolageticum, like Wild’s works, was removed from the Index in the revision of 1900.
Four of his works deal with subjects addressed at the Council of Trent: Christianae pardensis sive de recto in Deum fide libri septem (Venice 1564); Disputatio de indulgentiis adversus nostrae tempestatis haereticos (there 1564); Explanationes in quartum Symboli apostolici articolum (there 1564); De sacrorum hominum continentia (there 1559). He also wrote in the vernacular, in a clear and elegant style: Tractado de la christiana y verdadera humildad and the Exercicio de la verdadera y christiana humildad (Toledo 1570).