GENNARI, CASIMIRO. - Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, canonist and moralist. Born at Maratea (Potenza) in the diocese of Cassano on 27 Dec. 1839, died at Rome on 31 Jan. 1914, ordained priest at Cosenza in Lent of 1869, in 1876 he founded the review Il monitore ecclesiastico, in order to bring to the knowledge of the clergy the acts of the Holy See, with appropriate clarifications and additions of a liturgical, theological, moral and juridical nature. Created bishop of Conversano in 1881 (famous was his pacifying intervention in the rebellion of 20 May 1886), he continued to direct his review, which he did not abandon even when, called to Rome, he was appointed assessor of the Holy Office (1895) and archbishop of Lepanto (1897) and when in the cardinalatial creation of 15 Apr. 1901 he assumed the purple with the title of S. Marcello al Corso.
Later, in the new organization of the Curia (1908), he was entrusted with the prefecture of the Sacred Congregation of the Council, while as a member he belonged to various other congregations and commissions, among them that for the Codification of canon law. Indeed, on this subject a controversy has recently arisen that would claim for Card. G., in preference to Card. Gasparri, the merit of having been the promoter of the codification itself, of which he would have given the suggestion first to Leo XIII and then to Pius X, from whom he would have received the task of compiling the motu proprio Arduum sane (1904). His most esteemed work is the Consultazioni morali-canoniche-liturgiche (1st ed. Naples 1893; 2nd ed. Rome 1902; 3rd ed. ibid. 1913-15; French trans. by A. Boudhinon, Paris 1907). To this must be added various monographs of a predominantly juridical nature: Della nuova disciplina sulla proibizione e censura dei libri ovvero la Costituzione Officiorum commentata (3rd ed., Rome 1903); Questioni liturgiche (ibid. 1907); Questioni teologiche morali (ibid. 1907); Questioni canoniche (ibid. 1908); and various other pamphlets of which two are especially noteworthy: Sull'età della prima Comunione dei fanciulli, a brief commentary on the decree "Quam singulari" (4th ed., Rome 1911; he was one of the promoters of the decree); Sui doveri dei cattolici nelle rappresentanze politiche ed amministrative (2nd ed., Rome n.d., a pamphlet that caused a stir because of the author's ideas on the participation of Italian Catholics in the administrative and political life of the country). He also wrote catechetical and devotional works.