Father José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga (Marquina-Xemein, Bizkaia, Spain, April 22, 1915 - Mondragon, Gipuzkoa, Spain, November 29, 1976) was a Basque Catholic priest and promoter of the cooperative companies of the Mondragon Corporation, originally located in the Basque Country and currently spread throughout the world. As of 2021, it is the second social economy business group in Spain, bringing together ninety-eight cooperatives, eight foundations, one mutual, ten coverage entities and seven international delegations, distributed in four areas: finance, industry, distribution and knowledge. Arizmendiarrieta was a seminarian in Vitoria when the Spanish civil war began in 1936, and consequently he was mobilized by the Basque Government. Due to his knowledge of Basque language, he was assigned to the editor of the new newspaper Eguna, where he remained until the Francisco Franco’s troops entered Bilbao. He was arrested by them, and again mobilized for the Military Government of Burgos until the end of the war. After finishing his studies and his priestly ordination, he was assigned in 1941 as curate of the parish to the industrial town of Mondragon, located in the Gipuzkoan Deba Valley, where he remained until his death. A pragmatic and hard-working priest, with a great sense of social justice and human dignity, he promoted numerous entities and companies for the good of the workers and the community, in what he called the “cooperative experience of Mondragon". Thousands of people visit Mondragon every year to analyze Arizmendiarrieta's self-managed cooperative model for job creation and maintenance. He is considered Venerable in the Catholic Church. Biography Early years: 1915-1931 Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta, whose name is often shortened to "Arizmendi", was born on April 22, 1915, in the modest farmhouse called Iturbe, nestled in the Barinaga porch, in the municipality of Markina-Xemein, Biscay. His parents were José Luis and Tomasa. His father had a reputation as a man of peace among his neighbors. Good-natured, cheerful and determined, he had a social life under the wing of fairs and brotherhoods. His mother was a housewife in the spirit of the biblical woman: intelligent, orderly, hard-working and self-sacrificing. She carried the weight and style of her children's education and the administration of the farmhouse. Jose Maria was the eldest son of four brothers, the other three being Maria, Francisco and Jesus. When he was three years old he suffered a fall in front of the farmhouse, suffering a severe head injury, and taken to