Xabier Pikaza

Xabier Pikaza Ibarrondo (born 12 June 1941 in Orozko, Spain) is a Spanish theologian of Liberation Theology and professor at Pontifical University of Salamanca. He is one of the most renowned Spanish theologians of his time.

Life
He entered the Order of Mercy, within which he was ordained a presbyter of the Catholic Church.

Education
He studied theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca and received a Doctor of Theology in 1965. He later in 1972 received a Doctor of Philosophy from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome and specialized in biblical philology at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. Pikaza also furthered his studies at the universities of Bonn and Hamburg, Germany.

Teaching career
In 1972 he began teaching at the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, where he became a professor in 1975. From 1975 to 1984 Pikaza was full professor at Pontifical University of Salamanca. Between 1985 and 1989 he researched at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and at other universities, preparing several publications.

In 1985 the Vatican Congregation for Seminars and University and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith denied him the nihil obstat for his ideas on themes of dogmatic theology; therefore he cannot teach in universities of the Catholic Church. In 1989 he was granted the nihil obstat again but to teach phenomenology and History of Religions, not dogmatic theology. From 1989 to 2003 he was full professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, and was in charge of teaching the Phenomenology of Religion. He resumed his work as a professor at UPSA until he was dismissed again for doctrinal problems in 2003. During this time he abandoned the mercedarian order and the priesthood, marrying María Isabel Pérez Pérez Chaves.

Retirement
He also resigned from religious life as a religious of the Order of La Merced and priest of the Catholic Church due to tensions with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and the persecution carried out by the hierarchy against his work and teaching. He married María Isabel Pérez Chaves and since then, he has continued his work as a researcher and writer, and has published more than thirty works in the fields of Theology, Ethics and History of Religion.

Writtings
He has developed an enormous activity, from talks to dozens of books and articles published in magazines and encyclopedias. He was one of the nine experts who were neither politicians, victims, witnesses, or state officials, which the Commission of Investigation of the attacks of March 11 in Madrid called to give his opinion and contribute his knowledge of the implications of this subject, and will evaluate it from your area of knowledge about religions. Some of the main religious publishers include him in their list of authors. He has given numerous seminars and lectures on religious topics in Spain and America.