John of Ávila
January 6, 1499 — May 10, 1569
John of Ávila was born to a Jewish converso family in Almodóvar del Campo in 1499 and became the most celebrated preacher in sixteenth-century Spain — his 1529 Seville sermons drew massive crowds and earned him powerful enemies among the nobility whose vices he named openly. He survived an Inquisition trial, founded the University of Baeza, mentored Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, Francis Borgia, and John of God, and was declared a Doctor of the Church by Benedict XVI in 2012.