TOVINI, GIUSEPPE. - Catholic organizer, lawyer, b. at Cividale Camuno (Brescia) on 14 March 1841, d. at Brescia on 16 Jan. 1897.
His many-sided activity in the legal profession, in Catholic Action and in public offices was always nourished by the Christian virtues he courageously displayed. He practiced law as a social apostolate and with a rigorous Christian conception of justice and morality, refusing to plead causes he considered unjust, even if legally well founded. For this unblemished honesty, as well as for his knowledge of law and sureness of judgment, he was admired even by colleagues of opposing principles. He was a member of the Society of Lawyers of St. Peter and of the Central Committee for the legal defense of Pious Works; he is considered a true authority in ecclesiastical law. He displayed intense and fruitful activity in Catholic Action, and particularly in the Opera dei Congressi e Comitati cattolici (v.); as president of the diocesan Committee of Brescia from 1878, he organized the movement with the founding of parish committees — more than three hundred — and of youth sections, giving impetus to social action with rural banks, workers' societies and agricultural unions. Through his personal initiative two flourishing Catholic banks arose: the Banco S. Paolo in the province of Brescia and the Banco Ambrosiano which, from Milan, expanded outside Lombardy.
He devoted particular effort to the Preservation of the Faith in the Schools of Italy, approved and recommended by Leo XIII, who enriched it with indulgences. For it he founded the periodical La scuola italiana moderna; and he spread it with the soul of an apostle in numerous writings and speeches. It was largely due to him that in Brescia the ven. Luzzago College arose which, after administrative and judicial disputes happily overcome, became the Cesare Arici, still flourishing today. He also labored in the founding of Catholic university circles, of a League among Catholic teachers and in petitions for freedom of teaching. Having become a member of the General Committee of the Opera dei Congressi and of its directing Council as vice-president, he enjoyed the high esteem of the bishops with whom he had dealings and of Leo XIII himself.
In relations between Church and State he championed the rights of the Holy See, while also hoping for conciliation with expressions of true love of country. In the Franciscan Third Order, in the Marian Congregation, in the St. Vincent de Paul Society he left edifying examples of piety and charity.