MEDINA, MIGUEL. - Franciscan theologian, born in Belalcázar (Córdoba) in 1489, died in Toledo on 10 May 1578. He studied and then taught Sacred Scripture at the University of Alcalá. In 1562, Philip II sent him to the Council of Trent, where he defended the doctrine of indulgences and clerical celibacy, and where, at the request of the cardinal legates, he began the refutation of the Magdeburg Centuries. In 1571, he was elected, in Rome, general definitor of the Order.
He engaged in a long controversy with Domingo Soto, O.P., who, in his Annotationes (Salamanca 1554), had censured the doctrine of the Franciscan Johannes Wild (Ferus), writing the Apologeticum locorum quorundam 7. Feri (Alcalá 1558). Soto replied, and Medina responded, attempting a general rehabilitation of Wild. Summoned 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 San Juan de los Reyes, where he died. After his death, he was rehabilitated by the Holy Office, and his Apologeticum, like Wild’s works, was removed from the Index in the 1900 revision.
Four of his works address topics debated at the Council of Trent: Christianae paraneensis sive de recta in Deum fide libri septem (Venice 1564); Disputatio de indulgentiis adversus nostrae tempestatis haereticos (ibid. 1564); Explanatio in quartum Symboli apostolici articulum (ibid. 1564); De sacrorum hominum continentia (ibid. 1559). He also wrote in the vernacular, in a clear and elegant style: Tractado de la christiana y verdadera humildad and Exercicio de la verdadera y christiana humildad (Toledo 1570).