Juan Romero

Missionary and Indian linguist, b. in the village of Machena, Andalusia, Spain, 1559; d. at Santiago, Chile, 31 March, 1630. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1580, was assigned to the South American mission in 1588, and arrived in Peru in January, 1590, to take up his work among the Indians. From 1593 to 1598 he was superior of the missions of Tucuman, the missionary centre for the wild tribes of what is now northern Argentina. After a term as procurator in Rome, he returned to South America in 1610 and was successively superior of the Jesuit college at Buenos Aires, rector of the colleges of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile, and first vice-provincial of Chile. In his long service of nearly forty years as active or directing missionary Father Romero acquired a more or less fluent knowledge of several Indian languages, particularly of the Guarani of Paraguay, on which he was an authority. He was also the author of numerous letters and shorter papers and of an important manuscript work, “De Praedestinatione.”