NOVAL, JOSÉ. - Canonist, b. at Valdesoto (Spain) on 4 Dec. 1861, d. at Madrid on 28 Jan. 1938.
Having entered the Dominican Order at the age of sixteen, he was professor of canon law at the University of S. Tommaso d'Aquino in Manila, and later at that of S. Maria sopra Minerva. From 1910 to 1914 he returned to Manila as rector of that University. Recalled once more to Rome, he taught at the Collegio Angelico until 1932. During this period he played an important part in the drafting of the CIC and was Consultor to the Sacred Congregations of Seminaries and Universities and of Propaganda Fide. Having withdrawn to Spain, he became involved in the civil war; taken prisoner by the Reds in 1936, he was subsequently released, but ended his life in a sanatorium as a result of an illness contracted during his imprisonment. His principal work is the Commentarium CIC lib. IV de processibus. Pars I de iudiciis, Turin 1920; Pars II et III, ibid. 1932.