Joan Botam

Who is Joan Botam?

Joan Botam i Casals is a Catalan Capuchin, whose religious name is Fra Salvador de les Borges. When he finished his studies, he worked in the Registry Office and as administrator in the Les Borges Blanques town hall. In 1944 he entered as a novice in the Capuchin Order in Arenys de Mar. In 1955 he got his PhD in Theology in the Pontifical University of Salamanca and in the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome, and in 1957 he was appointed vice-director of the College of Philosofy and Theology of the Capuchin Friars. In 1952 he became a priest.

He was interested in the Catalan culture, and his work Arnau de Vilanova, moralista received the Jaume Serra i Húnter prize, which is given by the Institute of Catalan Studies. He has also been interested in hiking. In 1963 he was appointed vicar provincial of the Capuchin Friars of Catalonia, and he was at the same time chaplain of the ecumenical institution Pax Christi. From this position, he was engaged in several initiatives that were linked to pacifism and ecumenism. So he took part in the foundation of the Víctor Seix Institute of Polemology, he was part of the jury of the John XXIII Memorial and he cooperated actively in the anti-Francoist cultural resistance. He had an essential role in the Caputxinada of 1966. After that the Barcelona civil governor Antonio Ibáñez Freire tried to expel him from Spain, but the religious authorities and the Vatican avoided that.