D'INSENGARD, GIUSEPPE. - Missionary of St. Vincent, apostle of the catechism, b. of the barons d'I. at La Spezia on 25 Sept. 1844, d. at Rome on 9 July 1913. Ordained priest on 21 Sept. 1867, he embraced the religious life in the Congregation of the Mission on 19 Nov. 1872. From that year until 1901 he taught letters at the imperial Lercari boarding school of Sarzana. In 1901 he was charged with the teaching of moral theology and sacred eloquence at Turin, whence he passed in 1908 to Rome, as procurator general of his Community before the Holy See and consultor at the Sacred Congregation of Rites.
His passion for catechetical instruction organized in the form of a school dates back to the first years of his priesthood, and in 1872 he succeeded in having it adopted in the cities of La Spezia, Sarzana, Lerici, Massa. From that time there was no catechetical event in Italy in which he did not take an active part. Days, weeks, congresses, above all the 1st national one held at Piacenza in 1889 and the 2nd of Milan in 1910. In that same year he took the direction of the periodical Il catechista cattolico, to which he had effectively contributed since 1889. His articles, appreciated and awaited, often had the appearance and proportions of exhaustive monographs. Separately he published the volumes: Lezioni ed esempi di un eminente catechista, ossia il Catechismo secondo mons. Dupanloup (Turin 1891), and Breve cenno di catechetica (Rome 1910). He was a member of the Commission for the reform of the Breviary under Pius X and had a great part in the drafting of the official text of the Catechism of the same Pontiff.
Bibliography
Annibale Bugnini