BENZI, BERNARDINO. - Jesuit moralist, born in Venice on 16 July 1688, died there on 28 February 1768. He entered the religious order in 1705 and successively taught grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy in various colleges, then theology in Venice.
His *Dissertatio in casus reservatos Venetae diaccesos* (Venice 1743) was placed on the Index on 16 April 1744 for a proposition "de tactu mamillari," and on 22 May 1745 the same fate befell the *Praxis tribunalis conscientiae seu tractatus theologicus moralis de sacramento paenitentiae* (Bologna 1742). Around these incidents, a polemic of extreme violence erupted between Dominican theologians (Concina, Patuzzi, etc.) and Jesuits (B., Faure, Poli, etc.).
BIBL.: [Sommervogel, I, cols. 1315-16; F. Reusch, *Der Index der verbotenen Bücher*, II, Bonn 1883, pp. 817-20; J. Brucker, s. V. in *DThC*, I, cols. 719; E. Lamalle, s. V. in *DHG*, VIII, col. 293].