LEGA, MICHELE. - Cardinal, b. at Brisighella (Faenza) on 1 January 1860, d. at Rome on 16 December 1935. After degrees in philosophy and theology, he obtained in 1888 the degree in utroque iure at the Apollinare, where he immediately became a professor, teaching there until 1904.
In that year he was appointed undersecretary and auditor of the Sacred Congregation of the Council; in 1908 he was called to head, as dean, the renewed Tribunal of the Sacred Roman Rota. Created cardinal on 25 May 1914, he became in the same year prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and in 1920 he passed to head the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments, to the organization of which he brought important changes. In 1926 he opted for the bishopric of Frascati, to whose governance he devoted a good part of his energies.
He was a jurist of profound preparation, whose qualities emerged in his teaching and in his offices, especially in that of member of the commission for the compilation of the CIC. His activity for the successful outcome of the negotiations for the conciliation must also be remembered.
Among his works are to be remembered the Praelectiones in textum iuris canonici: de iudiciis ecclesiasticis (1st ed., Rome 1896-1901; 2nd ed., I, ibid. 1905), from which derived the Compendium praelectionum de iudiciis ecclesiasticis (ibid. 1906) and the Praelectiones in textum iuris canonici: de delictis et poenis (ibid. 1910), the latter written in the drafting of which L. also kept before him the results of lay doctrine. His sentences as a rota judge (from 1909 to 1914) have been collected and summarized in Coram Lega habitus S. R. Rotae decisiones sive sententiae (ibid. 1927). Posthumously there was published the Commentarius in iudicia ecclesiastica iuxta CIC (3 vols., ibid. 1938-41).
Bibliography2 works
Benedetto Lega