ROSA, ENRICO. - Jesuit, writer, b. at Selve Marcone (diocese of Biella) on 17 Nov. 1870, d. at Rome on 26 Nov. 1938.
He entered the Order in 1886 and was ordained a priest in 1900; in 1905 he was called to be one of the writers of the Civiltà Cattolica, of which from 1915 to 1931 he was also director.
To his work as a writer he brought a rare humanistic formation, a sure orientation in the philosophical and theological field, a fidelity of interpretation and a firmness as an indefatigable defender of the directives of the Holy See, so that Catholics and non-Catholics alike looked to him, in order to know in given circumstances what was to be thought and done, and it was rightly said that in the first 30 years of our century he exercised an undoubted function of leader, especially in highly delicate situations.
Besides the innumerable articles and reviews in the press written in the periodical, especially against the manifold errors of liberalism, the scourge of modernism and the ambiguous orientations (Action française) in the Catholic field, and in defense against the accusations hurled at the Pope, he left: Anselmo di Aosta arctiv. cantuariense e dottore della Chiesa (Florence 1909), L'encicl. Pascendi e il modernismo (Rome 1918); Visione cattolica della guerra (ibid. 1925), a collection of articles, sometimes supplemented by the passages suppressed by censorship; Lettere e scritti spirituali di s. Luigi Gonzaga (Florence 1927); I Gesuiti dalle origini ai giorni nostri (Rome 1934); Il b. Rocco Gonzales e compagni martiri (ibid. 1934). To these must be added the translation of the great work Storia della Chiesa by Card. Hergenröther (8 vols., Florence 1904-14) carried down to 1922.
Bibliography
Celestino Testore