Pedro de Arbués

St. Pedro de Arbués
Depiction of Pedro de Arbués with the crown and palm of martyrdom.
Religious, priest and martyr
Born	ca. 1441 Épila, Kingdom of Aragon
Died	September 17, 1485 Zaragoza, Kingdom of Aragon
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church (Canons regular and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zaragoza)
Canonized	1867, Rome, Papal States, by Pope Pius IX
Major shrine	Cathedral of the Savior, Zaragoza, Spain

Pedro de Arbués, C.R.S.A. (c. 1441 – September 17, 1485), was an official of the Spanish Inquisition who was assassinated in the La Seo Cathedral of Zaragoza in 1485 in an alleged plot by conversos and Jews. He was very quickly venerated as a saint by popular acclaim, and his death greatly assisted the Inquisition and its Inquisitor General, Tomás de Torquemada, in their campaign against heresy and crypto-Judaism.

Arbués was canonized in 1867.

Born at Épila, in the region of Zaragoza, his father, a nobleman, was Antonio de Arbués, and his mother's name was Sancia Ruiz. He studied philosophy, probably at Huesca, but later went to Bologna on scholarship to the Spanish college of St. Clement, part of the University of Bologna. He obtained his doctorate in 1473, while serving as professor of moral philosophy. Returning to Spain he became a member of the cathedral chapter of canons regular at La Seo, where he made his religious profession in 1474.

About that time Ferdinand and Isabella had obtained from Pope Sixtus IV a papal bull to establish in their kingdom a tribunal for searching out heretics. Jews who received baptism were known as Conversos; some may have continued to practice Judaism in secret. Torquemada, in 1483, was appointed Grand Inquisitor for Castile and appointed Arbués and fray Pedro Gaspar Juglar as Inquisitor Provincial in the Kingdom of Aragon (1484).