MOZZI, LUIGI. - Jesuit theologian, b. in Bergamo on 26 May 1747, d. at Oreno (Milan) on 2 July 1815. Forced to leave the Society in 1773, even before being ordained, he became a priest and then a canon, pro-synodal examiner, and archpriest of the Chapter of Bergamo, where he distinguished himself through his many-sided activity. For fifteen years (1777-92) he fought against Jansenism and its supporters. Subsequently he devoted himself to education, especially of young workers.
Persecuted politically because of the lively sympathy and influence he enjoyed among the young, he had to leave Bergamo (1797), to which he returned only for a brief period, spending almost the rest of his life in preaching popular missions. Pius VII appointed him (1804) prefect of the Oratory of the Caravita in Rome, but M. soon abandoned this office in order to re-enter the Society of Jesus, which had been re-established in Naples. After the Jesuits were driven from Naples and then also from Rome, he found asylum, after numerous vicissitudes, with the Counts Scotti of Milan and died in their villa at Oreno, attended by his friend St. V. Strambi.
His writings are predominantly polemical in character, against Jansenism. He also wrote several biographies, translated and annotated various foreign works, and left a good number of manuscripts and letters unpublished as well. For M.'s thought, the anti-Jansenist works are especially important, in which he attacks his adversaries, at times violently. Mention should be made of the works concerning the return of the Jews to the Church: Lettere ad un amico (Bergamo 1777); on the questions of Grace efficacious in itself and of gratuitous predestination: Il falso discepolo di s. Agostino e di s. Tommaso convinto di errore (Venice 1779); on the vicissitudes of the Church of Utrecht: Storia compendiosa dello scisma della nuova Chiesa di Utrecht (Ferrara 1785), Storia della rivoluzione della Chiesa di Utrecht (3 vols., Venice 1787); on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Il culto dell'amor divino (2 vols., Bologna 1792; a work by Msgr. J. H. Fumel, translated and annotated by M.).
Bibliography6 works
Silvio Cividini