On April 24, José Luis Illanes Maestre, a priest and professor at the School of Theology of the University of Navarra, died in Pamplona, Spain. This news will undoubtedly affect many people who have known José Luis personally or have benefited from his books and writings.

Born in Seville in 1933 to an Andalusian father and a Valencian mother, José Luis Illanes studied law in his native city, and his life project was to dedicate himself to the university. Soon, however, he changed the course of his life: in 1955 he applied for admission to Opus Dei, and the following year he moved to Rome to study at the Lateran University. From then on, Rome - and later Pamplona - would be the places where he would stay and to which he would return throughout his life. In Rome he defended his doctoral thesis on The Theological Foundation of Christianity according to Jacques Maritain. In that first work , Christian humanism was present, an issue that has interested him throughout his intellectual and academic life.

Professor Illanes was ordained a priest in 1960. He immediately began his teaching as a professor of theology and published his first works on topics that would be characteristic of him in the future: the theology of work, Christian spirituality with special emphasis on sanctification in the midst of the world. These years coincided with the celebration of the Second Vatican Council, which he lived very closely. He returned to Spain in 1972 to participate very actively in a project of great scope: the edition of the Gran Enciclopedia Rialp in which theology occupied a fundamental place.

He arrived in Pamplona in 1977. In the capital of Navarra, the School of Theology of the University of Navarra was developing little by little. At the School of Pamplona, Professor Illanes was Ordinary of Fundamental Theology and Spiritual Theology, and for more than twenty years he participated in the direction of the School, either as Dean or Associate Dean Observing his life, one discovers that he was at the service of "what had to be done", renouncing in part to personal projects. What had to be done was also the attention to doctoral students and young professors. Personally, I have learned permanent lessons from Mr. José Luis, both for academic work and for life itself: attention to detail, breadth of thought when considering ideas or people, not to consider uselessly unsolvable problems, etc.

In the numerous writings (about 400 titles) of this theologian from Seville, one discovers a great closeness to the European theology of the 20th century and a very special concern for everything that has to do with the Christian condition in its various aspects. His intellectual seriousness and vigor in facing the great philosophical-theological problems of our time, with innovative solutions, were admirably combined with his sense of humor and joy; he was a priest who knew how to relativize the problems, because he felt secure in his faith and Christian vocation. In him converged a profound capacity for abstraction, analysis and intuition, with a great capacity for resolution and internship. He knew how to be involved in many things at the same time, with an orderly and methodical spirit, foresighted down to the smallest details, in his classes, research, travels, etc,

Professor Illanes was a great researcher and a passionate man, vehement in his expositions and in the defense of his points of view, with an intelligence faster than words. But above all, he was a person of great kindness, affability and priestly heart who knew how to welcome and care for others. At his side, one felt close to a person who knew how to love and who took the problems out of the drama because, like St. Josemaría, he was full of love for this world and an unshakable hope.