Juan Tomás de Boxadors [SEP] position held
Juan Tomás de Boxadors
Juan Tomás de Boxadors (1703–1780) was the Master of the Order of Preachers from 1756 to 1777 and a cardinal from 1776 to 1780.
Biography.
Juan Tomás de Boxadors began his career as a diplomat of the Kingdom of Spain to the court of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor. Following the death of his brother in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Boxadors had a spiritual crisis that resulted in his joining the Dominican Order. He taught Christian theology for a number of years, and then
conferring academic degrees in theology to students outside the Order.
In the 1748 General Chapter or the Order at Bologna it was stated that the Thomistic philosophical and theological tradition needed to be revived. In 1757 Master General Juan Tomás de Boxadors composed a letter to all members of the Order lamenting deviations from Thomistic doctrine, and demanded a return to the teachings of Aquinas. This letter was also published in the General Chapter Acts in Rome 1777. Responding to Boxadors and to the prevailing philosophical rationalism of the Enlightenment, Salvatore Roselli,