ARINTERO, JUAN GONZÁLEZ

Spiritual writer; b. Lugueros (Province of León), Spain, June 24, 1860; d. Salamanca, Feb. 20, 1928. He entered the Dominican Order at Corias in 1875. From 1881 to 1886 he studied at Salamanca. As a specialist in the natural sciences, he taught at colleges in Vergara, Corias, and Valladolid from 1886 to 1898. During this period he published works on topics of scientific and religious interest. In 1900 he inaugurated at Valladolid the Academía de Santo Tomás, dedicated to the study of natural science in relation to philosophy and theology. In 1903 he was recalled to Salamanca as professor of apologetics, and except for one year (1909–10), which he spent as a professor at the Angelicum in Rome, he remained for the rest of his life in that city. The title of master in sacred theology was conferred upon him in 1908. At this period, he abandoned the study of the natural sciences and apologetics in order to give himself completely to ascetical and mystical theology. At the age of 45 Arintero projected the four-volume work that was to be his masterpiece, Desenvolvimiento y vitalidad de la Iglesia. As a result of his teaching regarding the call of all Christians to perfection and the normal development of the life of grace into contemplative prayer, and as a result of his denial of such a thing as acquired contemplation, Arintero became embroiled in controversies with Jesuits and Carmelites and with some of his Dominican brethren. In 1920 he founded the Spanish Dominican review of spirituality, La Vida sobrenatural, after having collaborated with the French Dominicans the previous year in the inauguration of La Vie spirituelle.

Bibliography: The Mystical Evolution in the Development and Vitality of the Church, tr. j. aumann, 2 v. (St. Louis 1949–51); Stages in Prayer, tr. k. pond (St. Louis 1957); Cuestiones místicas (Biblioteca de autores cristianos 154; 1956). a. suÁrez, Vida del M. R. P. Juan de Arintero … (Cádiz 1936). j. aumann, "Mystic of San Esteban," Cross and Crown 1 (1949) 198–207. j. l. callahan, "Fire on Earth," ibid., 225–234. m. m. gorce, Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique 1: 855–859.

[j. aumann]