Miguel de Molinos

Miguel de Molinos (baptised 29 June 1628 – 29 December 1696) was a Spanish mystic, the chief representative of the religious revival known as Quietism.

On 4 June 1662, Molinos was admitted to the local chapter of the School of Christ, a religious brotherhood that would play an important role in his later life in Rome.

[3] In July 1663, Molinos was chosen to travel to Rome as procurator of the cause of the beatification of the Venerable Francisco Jerónimo Simón (d. 1612), a secular cleric and beneficer of the parish of St Andrews in Valencia.

Molinos's royal commission and line of credit were revoked, and he was deprived of his official position in the Valencian delegation in Rome.

In a series of letters from February 1680 onwards, Molinos sought to assure Oliva that he had nothing but praise and respect for the Jesuits and their spirituality.

In March 1680, the Jesuit preacher Paolo Segneri, a renowned doctor of ascetical theology, wrote to Oliva, proposing a book defending meditation against the Quietists’ teaching.

[3] In spring 1687, Molinos was brought before a tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition and asked to explain his teaching, with 263 questionable propositions from his works at stake.

Although initially defending them, by May 1687 his attitude had changed and he confessed his errors of conduct and teaching and waived his opportunity to present a defence.

[3] On 23 August 1687, the entire case was read to the cardinal inquisitors, and on 2 September Molinos's sentence (life in prison) was announced.

On 3 September Molinos made a public profession of his errors in the Dominican Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

[6] In the second half of the twentieth century, however, the assessment of Eulogio Pacho has been somewhat more circumspect, aware of the problematic bias in the various sources on Molinos.

Bernard McGinn is not entirely forgiving of Molinos as a person, pointing out that it seems likely that he did, as he was accused, engage in sexual misconduct with some of his penitents during his work as a spiritual director.

McGinn, however, is keen to point out how far the errors condemned in the bull Coelestis Pastor do not in fact exist in the Spiritual Guide.

Rather, he argues, the imprecision and lack of qualifications in Molinos's work left him open to attack, and this was exacerbated by the fact that his book (with its various ambiguities) focused on certain issues (notably contemplation over meditation, interior quiet over vocal prayer, and passivity over pious action) which had become heated debates in the preceding century.