D'ANNIBALE, GIUSEPPE. - Cardinal, among the greatest moralists of the last century, b. at Borbona (L'Aquila) on 22 Sept. 1815, d. there on 17 July 1892. He completed his studies at the seminary of Rieti, and, ordained a priest in 1839, was sent as assistant to the parish priest in his native town where, apart from a brief interval of teaching dogmatic theology in the seminary, he remained until 1851, when he returned to the seminary as professor of moral theology. Capitular vicar (1866-1872), then vicar general (1872-81), he was elected titular bishop of Carystus on 1 Aug. 1882, and left Rieti to assume in Rome the office of canonist of the Sacred Penitentiary. Consultor (25 Apr. 1883) and then assessor (14 March 1884) of the Holy Office and canon of St. Peter's, he was created cardinal in 1889 and shortly afterwards (May 1889) appointed prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences.
A subtle and profound mind, he printed at Rieti his first work In const. « Apostolicae Sedis » commentarii (1873), which was a revelation for its erudition and the exactness of its doctrine, as well as for the conciseness of expression that was a characteristic gift of D'A. The work, "of small bulk and of very great weight" (Civ. Catt., 8th series, 1873, III, p. 584), had other editions (1874, 1880) during the author's lifetime and several posthumous ones. His learned conferences to the clergy of Rieti of the years 1878, 1879, 1880 were also printed. But his "principal" work is the Summula theologiae moralis, on which he labored for 20 years, recopying the manuscript 12 times without yet being satisfied with it, when he gave it to the press: I (Rieti 1874), II (ibid. 1875), III (ibid. 1876).
The 3rd ed. was dedicated to Leo XIII in his jubilee year, and to the last edition (Rome 1908) a Supplementum was also added (ibid. 1909) through the work of D. Mannaoli, bishop of Montefiascone and formerly professor of moral theology in the Roman seminary. Unfortunately, to this day there has been no one capable of adapting the book to the new CIC and to the new codes of civil law.
The importance of D'A.'s work is due above all to his having brought into the study of moral theology and canon law the powerful civil-law formation that he had begun under the guidance of an authentic master, D. Carlo Latini of Rieti, and had perfected in the dispute over his paternal property, maturing it thereafter over 30 years of teaching. Four qualities Ballerini discerned in D'A.'s work, reviewing it on the occasion of the 1st ed. in La Civiltà Cattolica: order (favored by his synthetic method, which proceeds from the general to the particular, from principles to conclusions), precision, brevity, clarity. In the Rotal sentences issued from 1909 to the present there is perhaps no theologian or canonist more frequently cited, and apart from certain positions now abandoned (his systema possessionis, the lawfulness of embryotomy, etc.) he is still one of the most studied and followed masters in the field of moral theology.
Bibliography3 works
Pietro Palazzini