Enrique Herrera Oria, S.J.
“I met him for the fist time with the occasion of the Foundation of the F.A.E. (Federation of Friends of Education).  From that moment on I had a very intimate relationship with him.  He was devout, simple, and humble, with a thorough knowledge of the Spanish educational problems, with great zeal and tactfulness in his actions. 

He became my best friend.  We had long conversations, either in the local of the F.A.E. (On Manuel Silvela Street and/or on Claudio Coello Street), or in his very modest home in Alameda Street.  I always left uplifted by his conversation… But the holiness of Poveda shone off in his resolute support of any work of God, especially in the field of education, no matter hose initiative”

María Antonia Navarro
Alumnae of the Academy in Ávila
“For us he was not ‘the Founder’, busy with work and problems, whom one hesitates to take his precious time; he was a father, interested in our things as if his own, he gave us advise with genuine affection, was ready to help in every possible way, and had the gift of consoling us in time of grief.

On one occasion, when I had finished my high school education and was not sure of my career choice, I thought of writing to him asking for his advise.  His reply did not take long and he even indicated the Universities where I could follow my studies, and gave me all minute details of their programs with his advise as to the course to take”.

Paul Poupard
Rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris, in 1974, with the occasion of the centenary celebration of Poveda’s birth. 

“Our humanism evolves into Christianity, and our Christianity becomes God centered:  To come to know God we must first know the human person” (Pope Paul VI).  Such is the humanism of Pedro Poveda in an era in which the human being, confused by the overwhelming conquest his intelligence has achieved over nature, hesitates upon the meaning he is to give to mankind’s existence”. 

Paul Grieger,
Professor at the University of Letran, lecturing in the Salon de Ciento in Barcelona, Spain, 1974.

“Today’s society is not threatened by the ‘lack of knowledge’ but by the ‘lack of conscience’.  It is in need of rubbing elbows with men and women who posses the truth that liberates.  For Pedro Poveda, the specific input of Catholic Education is precisely to imbue youth with the Gospel values:  with faith in a God that is all Love, the foundation of a sane moral mentality, of a universal brotherhood, of a freedom and a responsibility that is geared to service”.

Flavia Paz Velázquez
Biography of Pedro Poveda, 1986.
“We find ourselves not before a man with a dazzling personality but before a man with an ‘attractive spirit’, gentle and polite yet natural and simple:  A man who is not in a hurry, with a capacity to enter our world and give each thing its own relevancy.  We discover in him a communicator, someone who immediately engages us in his ideas and deep concerns, whether they relate to the situation of the marginalized or to the national educational problem or to the transmission of the Christian faith.  Poveda is a man with the gift to ‘suggest’, with a capacity to get us involved without forcing us; a ‘tolerant’ person, respectful, with a ‘condescending spirit’.

Eduardo Pironio
Presiding Cardinal for the Pontifical Council of the Lay, 1993.

“He molded his priesthood in the configuration with Christ Crucified and in the loving contemplation of Our Lady of Sorrows.  He left us, the priests of today, a triple message:  to be men of God, to be teachers of prayer and to live in this world conformed to Christ in the cross while being missionaries and evangelizers within the different cultures and from the poor and contemplative heart of Mary”.

Noberto Alcover
Journalist and professor at Comillas University, Madrid, 2003.
“Pedro Poveda entered my life in ways I could not avoid, to the point that being myself so ingrained in St Ignatius, I discovered in the man from Linares, Guadix and Madrid, the most complete frame of reference for that “being in the world without being of the world”, understanding for world here that which encompasses the prevailing selfishness.  And I was resolved to do two very concrete things:  to work for the liberation of women in the Church and in society, as a conscious task, and to persevere at the limit zone where the Gospel meets the cultural, the educational and the intellectual humanity”