VIVES, JUAN BAUTISTA. - Born on May 3, 1545 in Valencia (Aragon), died on Feb. 22, 1632 in Rome, belonging to the family of the humanist Juan Luis Vives (v.).
In 1588, already a doctor "utriusque iuris," he came to Rome, where Sixtus V in 1589 appointed him Cameriere segreto partecipante and writer of the Apostolic Letters; but only on 14 March 1609 did he become a priest. Clement VIII in 1604 appointed him Apostolic Protonotary and referendary of the Signatures of grace and justice; Gregory XV, as soon as the Congregation of Propaganda was founded, appointed him Prelate of that same Congregation. The King of Spain also conferred various honors on him. Philip III appointed him agent of the Inquisition of Spain in Rome. King Alvaro II of the Congo, after the death of the first ambassador Antonio Nigrita (1608), entrusted him with the embassy to the Roman Curia.
After his ordination as subdeacon (1591), V. opened a school for neophytes at his residence in Piazza del Popolo, later transforming it, with the help of St. John Leonardi, into a religious Congregation of Regular Missionary Clerics (1606-10); but this second attempt also failed. He then offered to the general of the Theatines, Vincenzo Filiberti (1621-27), probably in the years 1624-26, the Palazzo Ferratini, which he had bought as early as 13 Dec. 1613, together with a certain number of fixed revenues, in order to erect there, under the direction of the Theatines, a College for "secular clerics from beyond the mountains" who would prepare themselves ad propagandam fidem catholicam, that is, for missionary work (Arch. Gen. dei Teatini, cass. 47, Propaganda f. 13). When this project too fell through, V. donated the same Palazzo Ferratini, with revenues sufficient for 12 students, to Urban VIII and his successors, with the obligation of erecting there a College for secular priests from the whole world or for clerics in Holy Orders, to be promoted to the priesthood at the latest after one year, and to prepare themselves "pro propaganda in universum mundum catholica Fide" (v. COLLEGI ECCLESIASTICI, XXXI). On 14 July 1626 the Congregation of Propaganda charged V. with drawing up the rule and the statutes of the College. Urban VIII accepted the gift and the conditions contained in V.'s act of donation, and on 1 Aug. 1627 with the bull Immortalis Dei Filius he erected, under the patronage of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, the "Collegium Pontificium", giving it his own name "Urbanianum", for secular priests from the whole world.
Seeing that the College of secular priests did not suffice for his purpose, V. proposed to Propaganda the erection of a school of languages for religious missionaries in the part of the Capuchin convent of S. Bonaventura, to be entrusted to the Premonstratensians. But the Congregation, in its session of 12 Dec. 1628, did not accept the proposal, since the Pope had already disposed of the building for another purpose. More than eighty years old and confined to the room of the Rector of the Collegio Urbano, V. continued to think about the propagation of the faith. Indeed, in June 1645 he had proposed to the Congregation the erection, alongside the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, of a similar one "pro tuenda Fide", staffed by 24 theologians, a task already practically fulfilled by the Holy Congregation of the Holy Office. In order to interest the whole Catholic world in helping the missions financially, he proposed in Feb. 1628 that a tax of 10% on all legacies, bequests and pious donations be assigned to the Holy Congregation de Propaganda Fide to assist the missions. He justified this tax by Jesus' missionary precept addressed to all members of the Church.