PINI, GIOVANNI DOMENICO. - Assistant of Catholic Action, b. in Milan on 29 Jan. 1871, d. at Arona on 11 Apr. 1930. He attended the University of Pavia and of Genoa, where he earned his degree in law. Having returned to Milan, he took part with Filippo Meda in the religious and social activities of Catholics, collaborated with the Osservatore cattolico and promoted the idea of a Catholic university. Obeying his priestly vocation, he entered the Seminary of Tortona and was ordained a priest by Card. Ferrari on 23 Dec. 1899.
After a brief parochial interlude, he was assigned to the Ambrosian Library, but he continued to work especially in the Fascio democratico cristiano. Together with L. Necchi he cooperated in the conversion of Edoardo Gemelli. Already an assistant in the Catholic university circle of Milan, after the national Congress of the FUCI, in 1906, he became federal assistant. This was the activity to which he devoted all his energies for sixteen years: to him were due the surmounting of so many organizational, modernist and political crises: the direction he imparted remained the particular characteristic of the FUCI within Catholic Action. He was also vice-assistant general of the G.C.I. In 1913 he was appointed parish priest of S. Eustorgio in Milan and during the war his parish was the center of an exemplary welfare activity for combatants and their families: 14,000 letters bear witness to his initiative to keep the FUCI alive while its members were at the front. In 1923 he left the FUCI to assume the general assistantship of the G. C. I.; at the same time he was appointed canon of St. Peter's in the Vatican. Two years later he was replaced and became vice-president of the Eucharistic congresses. He compiled a booklet of prayers Ora felice, Ora breve (Milan 1895), another little manual Collana di perle (ibid. 1898) and a pamphlet on Roma alla mente e al cuore del giovane (Rome n. d.).
Bibliography5 works
Augusto Moreschini