MONTI, GIUSEPPE. - Apologist and publicist, b. in Bologna on 14 Nov. 1879, d. in Rome on 31 Dec. 1949. Ordained a priest on 19 Dec. 1903, he attended special courses at the Institut Catholique and the École pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, at the University of Munich and at other higher institutes. Contact with intellectuals of all nations, above all with the distinguished Dominican Ambroise Gardeil (v.), and the encouragement of Benedict XV oriented M. toward apologetic studies and the concrete organization of the social movement of Catholics.
In the many offices he held (rector of the Belgian College at the University of Bologna, director of the National Center of Culture and of the International Office of Catholic Organizations, consultor of the Sacred Congregation of the Council for the catechetical office, substitute for the censorship of books at the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, professor of apologetics in the Pontifical Lateran Athenaeum from 1932 to 1949), Mons. M. was a tireless worker, who reorganized the resumption of the social weeks after the war, prepared the historic world exhibition of the Catholic press in the Vatican (1935-36), and published works of value: L'apologetica scientifica della religione cattolica (Turin 1922); Manuale internazionale delle organizzazioni cattoliche (ibid. 1924, translated into French, English, Spanish, German); La libertà della scuola (Milan 1928, translated into Spanish); La formazione dei laici all'apostolato (2nd ed., Rome 1928); La libertà scolastica (ibid. 1949): a work of his maturity, valuable for the study of comparative constitutions. He collaborated on the Enc. Catt.: v., e.g., APOLOGETICA.
Bibliography
Antonio Piolanti