Castañeda, Francisco de Paula (1776–1832)
Castañeda, Francisco de Paula (1776–1832)
Francisco de Paula Castañeda (b. 1776; d. 12 March 1832), Argentine educator and journalist. Born in Buenos Aires, Castañeda studied at the College of San Carlos, became a Franciscan friar, and was ordained a priest in 1800. He taught moral theology for three years and staunchly supported the May Revolution of 1810. He was a firm advocate of public education and in 1815 founded a school of design and drawing. In the same year he became the superior of the Franciscans.
Castañeda opposed Bernardino Rivadavia's anticlerical measures (e.g. abolishing tithes, prohibiting persons under twenty-five from entering monastic life, and limiting the number of monks that could reside in monasteries), for which he was banished from Buenos Aires (1821–1823). He wrote prolifically and energetically against Rivadavia's reforms, characterizing his rule as "insane, heretical, immoral, and despotic." Among his publications are La verdad desnuda (1822), Derecho del hombre, and Buenos Aires cautiva. He founded schools for Indians of Paraná and San José de Feliciano. Castañeda died in Paraná.
See alsoFranciscans; Rivadavia, Bernardino.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ricardo Levene, A History of Argentina (1963).
Additional Bibliography
Fúrlong Cárdiff, Guillermo. Vida y obra de Fray Francisco de Paula Castañeda: Un testigo de la naciente patria argentina, 1810–1830. San Antonio de Padua: Ediciones Castañeda, 1994.
Nicholas P. Cushner