PINI, GIOVANNI DOMENICO. — Assistant of Catholic Action, b. in Milan on 29 January 1871, d. at Arona on 11 April 1930. He attended the Universities of Pavia and Genoa, where he obtained a degree in law. After returning to Milan, he took part with Filippo Meda in the religious and social activities of the 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 Cardinal Ferrari on 23 December 1899.
After a brief period in parish ministry, he was assigned to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, but continued to work especially in the Fascio democratico cristiano. Together with L. Necchi, he contributed to Edoardo Gemelli’s conversion. Already assistant at 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: the overcoming of many organizational, modernist, and political crises was owed to him; the direction he imparted remained the distinctive feature of the FUCI within Catholic Action. He was also deputy general assistant of the G.C.I. In 1913 he was appointed parish priest of S. Eustorgio in Milan, and during the war his parish became the center of exemplary assistance to combatants and their families: 14,000 letters attest to his initiative in keeping the FUCI alive while its members were at the front. In 1923 he left the FUCI to assume the general chaplaincy of the G. C. I.; at the same time he was appointed a 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 prayer booklet, Ora felice, Ora breve (Milan 1895), another small manual, Collana di perle (ibid. 1898), and a pamphlet on Roma alla mente e al cuore del giovane (Rome, n.d.).
BIRL.: various authors, Necrologio, in Studium, 26 (1930), pp. 205–230; G. B. Migliori, G. D. P., Milan 1931; id., G. D. P. e Vico Necchi, in Studium, 28 (1932), pp. 333–42; G. Dorc, Don G. D. P., Todi 1936; G. Anichini, 50 anni di vita della FUCI, Rome 1947, passim. Augusto Moreschini