MORALES, JUAN BAUTISTA de. - Dominican missionary, b. at Ecija (Andalusia) c. 1597, d. at Funing (China) 17 Sept. 1664. Having entered religious life in his homeland, around 1620 he departed as a missionary for Manila; he subsequently evangelized Cambodia (1629–33), then penetrated the Mongol Empire.
He devoted himself with the greatest zeal to the conversion of the infidels. He often suffered persecutions and tortures; he was also scourged and mortally wounded for the faith. He took part in the discussion of the Chinese rites controversy against the Jesuits, in order to settle which he was sent to Rome (1643). Having returned to China (1649), he was ever a vigilant guardian of the purity of the faith. He wrote many pamphlets concerning the Chinese rites controversy; among these: Quaesita septemdecim (Rome 1645), submitted to the Congregation of Rites. He also wrote a Historia evangelica del reyno de la China, a Life of St. Dominic in Chinese, a vocabulary, and a grammar of the Chinese language, which he knew perfectly.