Manuel Guerra Gómez, professor at School of Theology, passed away.
Full Professor of the School de Teología del Norte de España (Burgos), taught subjects related to the sciences of religions at the University of Navarra.
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30 | 08 | 2021
Manuel Guerra Gómez died on August 25 in Burgos at the age of 90. He was born in Villamartín de Sotoscueva (Burgos) and studied at the Diocesan seminar "San José" in the capital of Burgos. He was ordained a priest in 1955 and was a professor at School of Theology at the University, where he taught subjects related to the sciences of religions.
He usually moved to Pamplona from Burgos, where he mainly developed his work professor and where he was Full Professor of Biblical Greek, Christian Latin, Patristic Theology and History of Religions, as well as secretary and president of the School of Theology. He was also a professor at the Estudio Teológico "San Ildefonso" in Toledo.
He holds a doctorate in Classical Philology from the University of Salamanca and a doctorate in Patristics from the Institutum Agustinianum in Rome. In 1980, EUNSA published the three volumes of his Historia de las religiones, precedent of what would later become his Historia de las religiones in the collection Sapientia Fidei, sponsored by the Spanish Episcopal lecture (BAC, Madrid 1999).
In 2005 he was one of the founding members of the network Ibero-American programs of study of Sects (RIES), which he chaired until 2019; and in 2006 he was appointed corresponding academic of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Spain.
César Izquierdo, professor and Associate Dean of the School of Theology at the University, affirms that those who knew him appreciated "his serene and good-humoured look, as well as his character Spanish which led him to defend decisively what he considered just, always moved by his love for each person in their specific circumstances, and for the Church".
He also notes that "his deep spiritual life led him to want to be a contemplative in the exercise of his ministry. On several occasions, I heard him tell about meeting with St Josemaría, in 1972, and how he asked him to explain to him what the founder of Opus Dei had affirmed in word and in writing: that it was possible to pray die noctuque. Praying, even in his sleep, was for the priest and professor from Burgos a challenge he would not give up.
