PEÑALVER y CARDENAS, LUIS IGNATIUS. – Prelate, born in Havana on 3 April 1749, died there on 17 July 1810. A student of the Jesuits, he was forced to interrupt his studies because of the suppression of the Order in the territories under the dominion of the king of Spain; he therefore enrolled at the University and in 1771 obtained a degree in theology.
An irreproachable priest, he was at the same time endowed with good administrative abilities, which he demonstrated during the offices entrusted to him by the bishop of Santiago de Cuba. In 1789, the year the see of S. Cristoforo dell'Avana was erected, he was among the candidates proposed to govern this new diocese. A few years later he was consecrated bishop of Luisiana and Florida, with his see at Nuova Orléans, which at that time was in a state of desolation. Invoking the Tridentine canons, on 21 December 1795 he addressed an energetic exhortation to the parish priests concerning the care of their parishes. On 20 July 1801 he was promoted to the archiepiscopal see of Guatemala, where he founded schools and a hospital. In March 1806 he resigned the government of the diocese and withdrew to Havana: there, at his own expense, he established a charitable institution with schools for girls.