Jesuit who helped Spain’s transition to democracy and encouraged the separation of Church and State The Jesuit José María Patino, who died one day before his ninetieth birthday, played a key role in distancing the Spanish Church from the Franco regime and helped pave the way for a return to democracy.The son of modest and politically liberal schoolteachers, Patino was born and spent his early years in Lumbrales, a small village near the old university city of Salamanca. He studied classical philosophy in Salamanca after ­graduating  from the Jesuit Pontifical University of Comillas in Madrid. He went on to study theology at Sankt Jörgen, Frankfurt, and obtained a doctorate at the Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained a priest in 1957 and was call