MENDEZ DE SAN JUAN, José. – Minim friar and moral theologian, born in Madrid in 1605, died there on 17 July 1680. He successively held the posts of lecturer in dogmatic and moral theology. He served as Qualificator of the Holy Inquisition in Valencia, general visitor of all the libraries of Spain, and provincial of Castile for his Order; he was also frequently consulted by the King.
He published a complete course of moral theology (6 vols., Madrid 1641–78), to which he added: *Praxis theologiae mysticae* (ibid. 1674). Manuscripts still survive: a complete course in philosophy and another in dogmatic theology; a treatise on frequent and daily Communion; questions on the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary; *De statu religioso*, etc.
Mendez, Apostolic Vicariate of – Jivaro hunting with a blowgun.
In 1674, and the Albergo dei poveri founded in Naples by Charles of Bourbon in 1751. In Catholic countries, with the Catholic Reformation, there was a great revival of charitable action, marked by a series of new institutions of beneficence associated with the names of great saints such as Camillus de Lellis, Vincent de Paul, Catherine of Genoa, Ignatius of Loyola, Cajetan, Philip Neri, etc.
With the Enlightenment first and then the French Revolution, the conception of alms-giving (*mendicità*) was further transformed: it was no longer regarded as a vice of the individual but of society. The poor have a right to assistance, which becomes a fundamental duty of the State and only subsidiarily of various religious or professional associations. This concept was clearly expressed in 1790 by the “Committee on Alms” of the French National Assembly, which first spoke of preventive measures to be taken by the State for the elimination of begging.
In Protestant nations, state assistance remains prevalent to this day, whereas in Catholic countries there is a tendency to re-evaluate the important tradition of private charity and to regard the State only as the coordinating and supervisory body.
Italian legislation has repeatedly addressed the problem of begging: the Public Security Law of 20 March 1865 restricted alms-giving to the incapacitated alone, provided they held a certificate of indigence issued only by municipalities without an almshouse; the Crispi Law of 1889 and the subsequent decree specifying its implementation restricted the possibility of granting such certificates, allowing admission to another municipality and establishing a ranking among the bodies responsible for the cost of lodging (charitable institutions, municipalities, the State). Complementary to the public security provisions are those of the Penal Code, still in force, which punish with arrest the beggar without a certificate and those who employ for begging minors under 18 from other families. The Public Security Law of 22 July 1897 lays down the procedures for
Italian legislation has repeatedly addressed the problem of begging: the Public Security Law of 20 March 1865 restricted alms-giving to the incapacitated alone, provided they held a certificate of indigence issued only by municipalities without an almshouse; the Crispi Law of 1889 and the subsequent decree specifying its implementation restricted the possibility of granting such certificates,
MENDOZA Y BUSTAMANTE, Juan. – He was probably acquainted with Francisco de Vitoria (q.v.), became *maestrescuela* of the Salamanca Chapter, archdeacon of Toledo, and bishop of Coria (1535). Sent to Rome by Charles V, he remained there almost uninterruptedly until 1557, effectively promoting Spanish interests, especially in the matter of the Council of Trent and the conclaves.
A close friend of St Ignatius of Loyola, whom he had known and admired since 1527 in the prisons of Salamanca, he defended Ignatius’s ascetical doctrine, promoted his work (in the foundation of the German College, the College of Salamanca, and the College of Burgos, and in the spread of the Society [of Jesus]), and vindicated his memory. Created cardinal in 1544 by Paul III at the request of the Emperor, in 1550 he became bishop of Burgos, which, urged by St Ignatius, he personally reached in 1557. He renewed his diocese through pastoral visitation, the establishment of a seminary with a rich library, the economic improvement of the chapter’s table, the restoration of the episcopal palace, the embellishment of the cathedral, and the promulgation of the Tridentine decrees (11 June 1564). So many activities had marked him out for the benevolence of Philip II, who had him promoted to archbishop of Valencia, but death prevented him from taking possession of the new see.
Formed in the climate of the nascent Spanish Humanism, Mendoza y Bustamante became one of its distinguished representatives. Esteemed by Erasmus, in contact with the finest men of the Italian Renaissance and the Catholic Reformation, an assiduous student of St Thomas and the greatest scholastics, a passionate collector of manuscripts, in 1557 he returned to Spain with many crates of codices and a greater store of patristic and theological knowledge, which he used in composing a Eucharistic work conceived in defence of the real presence against the Protestants, particularly against Œcolampadius: the extensive treatise *De naturali cum Christo unitate, quam per dignam Eucharistiae sumptionem fidei consequuntur*. Written between 1561 and 1565, it sets forth with warmth and extraordinary erudition a thesis of striking originality: the Eucharist, worthily received, produces two unions, one spiritual through sanctifying grace (common to all the sacraments), the other natural (in the sense of true and real), which consists in the communication of all the properties of Christ’s human nature to the whole substance of the faithful (and thus not only to the soul but also to the body, by a kind of overflowing), by virtue of the sacramental grace proper to the Eucharist. This special charism is a *donum quoddam christificum*, which renders the communicant “Christ-like,” just as habitual grace renders the baptised “God-like.” This union persists even after the species have vanished and produces in the faithful the deepest *corporatio* among themselves, an irresistible inclination toward unity with the Father in heaven, and an intimate exigency of somatic resurrection at the end of time (q.V. Eucharistic Communion). The author develops this theme in five books, in which vast positive learning is fused with the best Thomist speculation.
The work, which remained unpublished and thus poorly understood, occasioned many disputes even during the author’s lifetime, of which a vivid recollection was preserved forty years later by Gabriel Vázquez (*Commentarii et disputationes in III Sum. Theol.* disp. 204, cap. 1). The decided opposition of his contemporaries found its culmination in an adverse judgment by Suárez. Vázquez, the only one to have read the work in a manuscript from Toledo, greatly mitigated the unfavourable verdict of the eminent Doctor, and from then on three currents emerged in Eucharistic theology: resolute opponents (Henríquez, Tanner, Wiggers, Fugandez, Martínez del Prado, Becano, Mastrio, Granado, the Salmanticenses), moderate defenders (Pedro Martínez, Diego de Tapia, Luis de León, Andrea de la Guadalupe, Thomassin), and secret advocates who amplified Mendoza’s thought (Cardinal Cienfuegos, De la Raguer, Selleri, Cardinal Belluga, Rabago, and Agramunt). In the eighteenth century, with the decline of theology, almost all trace of Mendoza y Bustamante and his doctrine was lost.
Discovered in 1937 by A. Piolanti in the library of the Roman Seminary (to which it had come by testament from Monsignor Ubaldo Mannucci), the Mendoza manuscript was subsequently edited by him with an introduction and notes in the Lateranum series. In the present-day fervor for the doctrine of the Mystical Body, the work of M. y B. becomes once again relevant and is open to further study, since it belongs to the living tradition of Greek realism and Thomistic speculation.