Morales, Juan Bautista
MORALES, JUAN BAUTISTA
Dominican missionary; b. Ecija, Andalusia, Spain, 1597; d. Funing, China, Sept. 17, 1664. In 1620 he accompanied 16 Dominicans to Manila; however, he was later ordained in Mexico. In 1622 he was appointed curate of the Chinese in Manila; he was later sent to Cambodia (1628–29) and Fukien (1633), where he continued the work of Angelo Cocchi, OP, so effectively that he is called the second founder of the Chinese mission. He opposed the Jesuits in the controversy over the Chinese rites and brought the matter to Rome (1645), but the final decision upholding Morales and the Dominican condemnation of Jesuit practices was not given until 1742. He was a devout missionary, zealous for souls, who, according to Vittorio ricci, was mourned by his flock despite his rigorous and unyielding temperament. Morales was the author of Historia evangelica del reyno de la China, of a life of St. Dominic in Chinese, and of a grammar and vocabulary of the Chinese language.
Bibliography: b. m. biermann, Die Anfänge der neueren Dominikanermission in China (Münster 1927). Acta capitulorum generalium O.P., ed. b. m. reichert (Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum historica 8; 1900).
[b. m. biermann]