Antonio Añoveros Ataún (Pamplona, 1909 - Bilbao, 1987), was a Spanish prelate, Bishop of Cádiz and Ceuta (1964–1971), Diocese in which he had been Co-Adjuctor Bishop from 1954 to 1964, and finally Bishop of Bilbao (1971–1978).
First as Co-Adjuctor Bishop and then as Bishop of Cádiz, he participated in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council.
As Bishop of Bilbao, he was seen as ideologically close to Basque nationalism and was a major player in a famous revolutionary incident towards the end of Francoist Spain. On 24 February 1974, he published a pastoral letter requesting the recognition of the Basque cultural and linguistic identity. This occurred several months after the assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco by ETA, president of the Council of Ministers and supposedly Franco's successor. He was accused of launching subversive attacks against national unity. He was kept under virtual house arrest and was pressured to resign his position and go into exile. He defied the Spanish government by accepting such a fate only if Pope Paul VI asked him to. Pope Paul VI reacted by threatening to excommunicate the then Prime Minister Arias Navarro, (an important matter because Catholicism was the state religion at the time). In the end, the Spanish Government was forced to lift their restrictions.
Ever since the position of the Basque prelature has been radically different to the rest of the Church in Spain