CAMPELLO, ENRICO. - Religious agitator, b. in Rome in 1831 to an old family from Spoleto, and d. there in 1902. Having entered the ecclesiastical life, he was successively canon of St. Mary Major and of St. Peter's. In 1881 he apostatized, and in the same year published his Confession of Faith, which in practice is almost that of the Old Catholics, namely that the hierarchy was indeed of divine institution, but that bishops and parish priests had to be elected by the clergy and the laity; to the Pope he acknowledged only that he was the "primus inter pares", denying him infallibility; the liturgy had to be celebrated in the vernacular; ecclesiastical celibacy was indeed acceptable to God, but the obligation for priests to observe it was unjust and tyrannical, and had to be abolished, etc.
On these foundations he wished to found the so-called "Italian Catholic Church". Aided by the Anglicans of the "Anglo-Continental Society", he founded in Rome the newspaper "Il labaro", which disappeared after a short time, and was reborn at San Remo under the direction of Ugo Janni. In 1883, urged on by the Anglican minister Dr. Nevin, he inaugurated a chapel in Rome, on via Genova, opened some schools, and was recognized as a priest of the "Church of God" by the Episcopal bishop of Long Island in the United States. At this time some apostates joined him, such as G. B. Savarese, who later reconciled with the Church, and Cicchitti-Suriani. In 1886, as the affairs of the new church were not going well, C. made a journey to London to consult with his Anglican friends, and there it was decided that he should leave Rome and go to spread the new doctrines in the Valnerina, among whose populations he worked for many years, especially at Castellilago, Arone, Ferentello and in some other small village, with a foothold also at San Remo, under the aegis of Ugo Janni. In 1902 C., at the age of 71, made his abjuration in the chapel of the Pontifical Pio Latino Americano College in Rome, and returned to the Church, in which, repentant of his sins, he died.