A native of the Valles de Luna, specifically the beautiful little town of San Pedro de Luna, where he was born and spent the first years of his youth (1929), Luis Martínez Fernández, doctor of Sacred Theology, prelate passed away on April 9 of Pope Francis, professor at the Theological University of Northern Spain (Burgos), full member of the Royal Association of Knights of the Monastery of Yuste and of the Royal Association of Knights of King Fernando III, colonel of the General Military Corps, chaplain of the Casa de León (in Madrid) and chaplain of various ecclesiastical institutions. The foregoing, it must be added that for fifteen years he held the position of general secretary of the Episcopal Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith. And to all these tasks he is obliged to add his important work as a writer, poet, musicologist, lecturer and collaborator of various media. On the other hand, his great passion, apart from being an exemplary priest, was theological thought. He was the first to demand, in the face of diverse and sometimes extravagant theological conceptions, a 'Statute of Theology'. And he developed this idea for many years within the 'Theological Weeks of León' which, for more than a decade, he organized and presided over. Within those 'weeks' his great book 'The Statute of Theology' emerged. He is also the author of 'Corona de Gloria', a magnificent sober study of the spiritual graces of the Virgin Mary, 'Dictionary of Theology', a work that was an undeniable 'best seller' at the time, 'Meditation on the Eucharist' and 'The Legal-Theological School of Salamanca', extraordinary analysis of the thought of Victoria, Laínez, Soto, Sepúlveda and other great ecclesiastical thinkers. As a nice anecdote, just remember that the then Prince of Spain, Don Juan Carlos de Borbón, attended the reading of the aforementioned doctrinal thesis. Luis never wanted to be more than he was; he did not like the tinsel and the fleeting glory. He was nominated for the tenure of various bishoprics, but he always preferred to go freely through his lands in the Kingdom of León, lock himself in his ivory tower and write the little things of life; write about the upright poplars of his romantic little town; sing, like authentic poets, the grace of Jara, lavender, thyme and the arabesques of 'the Leonese trout'. There, in the immense Swamp of the Barrios de Luna, whose waters, for the sake of progress, one day abnegated the geographical reality of his longed for little town, reading the pages of his breviary, he expected, as it is, the false glory of vanity human. Without a doubt, I believe that we were the friends of his in that the Mother of God, to whom he sang with a singular voice, will have come out to lead him in the presence of the Eternal Father.
