8/4/2015

Leonardo Castellani - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leonardo Castellani
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leonardo Castellani (November 16, 1899 March 1981), was an Argentine priest, essayist, novelist, poet and
theologian.
Born in Reconquista, Santa Fe, Castellani was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1930, he studied Philosophy and
Theology in Rome. Back in his country, he worked in the Catholic press and went into politics as a representative
of Catholic nationalism. He was among the candidates of the Alianza Nacionalista party for a seat in Congress in
the 1946 elections. Between 1946 and 1949 he clashed with his own Society of Jesus, who promptly sent him to a
two year confinement in Manresa (Spain). After his petition to assist his brother's funeral was refused, Castellani
escaped from Manresa returning to Argentina. He was then expelled from the order and suspended from his
functions as a priest, which were repristinated in 1966.
Castellani has left a considerable bulk of essays, novels, tales and poetry. Among the wide range of subjects he
tackled, his religious writings deserve a special place, especially his sermons on the gospels and his exegesis of
Johns Apocalypse. His prolific intellectual production includes a commented edition of St. Thomas Aquinas
Summa Theologica. One of his last books is dedicated to Sren Kierkegaard, for whom he nurtured a great
admiration. Father Castellanis style is forceful, lively and of an acute intelligence.
Considering his right wing sympathies earned him the dislike of the progressive left wing intelligentsia on the one
hand while his conflicts with the Jesuit order spawned the mistrust of weighty sectors of the Catholic world, it is no
surprise that Castellanis work has never reached the position it deserves among Argentine letters. Apart from a
restricted group of fervent admirers such as Argentine writers Rafael Squirru and Sebastian Randle (author of a
voluminous biography of the priest published by Vortice in 2003) and Cardinal Antonio Quarracino who consider
him one of the foremost Argentine intellectuals of the Twentieth Century, it would not be exaggerated to say that
Castellanis writings are still widely ignored in his own country.

External links
http://hjg.com.ar/txt/lc/index.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20080324033549/http://www.geocities.com/tomistas/castellani.htm
http://www.feyrazon.org/Castellani.htm
For a series of translated essays by Fr. Castellani, see
http://www.statveritas.com.ar/Libros/Libros-INDICE.htm
http://tollers.jack.googlepages.com/etvoil%C3%A0%21
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leonardo_Castellani&oldid=615360972"
Categories: 1899 births 1981 deaths People from Reconquista, Santa Fe Argentine people of Italian descent
Argentine poets Argentine writers Argentine essayists Argentine Jesuits Former Jesuits
Roman Catholic philosophers Argentine translators
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Castellani

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