Juan de Torquemada (cardinal)

Juan de Torquemada O.P. (Ecclesiastical Latin: Johannes de Turre cremata, various spellings) (1388 – 26 September 1468), was a Spanish Thomistic Theologian, polemicist, and Cardinal. He has been described as the most articulate papal apologist of the fifteenth century, and a defender of Jewish converts to the Catholic Church (conversos).

Torquemada became a member of the Order of Friars Preachers at the age of fifteen. After his studies, he was a participant in five Papal elections during his life, and was present for the Council of Florence. Torquemada was elevated to Cardinal in 1439, by Pope Eugene IV. As prolific writer, he wrote championing the Papacy in his work Summa de ecclesia, defending the conversos in Castile, and attacking Islam. He was an uncle of Tomás de Torquemada, afterwards well-known as the Grand Inquisitor.