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 during Lent 1869, in 1876 he founded the journal Il Monitore Ecclesiastico to bring to the attention of the clergy the acts of the Holy See, with appropriate elucidations and additions of a liturgical, theological, moral and juridical nature. Created bishop of Conversano in 1881 (notable was his pacifying intervention during the rebellion of 20 May 1886), he continued to direct his journal, which he did not abandon even when, summoned to Rome, he was named assessor of the Holy Office (1895) and archbishop of Lepanto (1897), nor when in the consistory of 15 Apr. 1901 he received the red hat with the title of S. Marcello al Corso.
Later, in the new organisation of the Roman 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, including that for the Codification of Canon Law. Indeed, on this matter a recent controversy has flared up that would claim for Card. G., to the exclusion of Card. Gasparri, the credit for being 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 commission to draft 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. 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, two of which are especially noteworthy: Sull’età della prima Comunione dei fanciulli, breve commento del decreto «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 for 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.