Umberto Benigni, circa 1910 Umberto Benigni was a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

priest and Church historian, who was born on 30 March 1862 in

Perugia Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. It has 162,467 ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and died on 27 February 1934 in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

Biography

A lecturer in

Church history Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual side of t ...

from 1885, one year after his ordination to the priesthood, he also engaged in journalism, at first locally, and became in 1893 editor in chief of the national daily newspaper '' L'Eco d'Italia''. Due to a conflict with the Archbishop of

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

, he moved to Rome in 1895, working at first as an assistant in the historical research section of the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...

. In 1900 he began contributing to the newspaper '' La Voce della Verità'', becoming its director in 1901, the same year in which he also became Professor of Church History at the seminary of the

Diocese of Rome The Diocese of Rome (; ), also called the Vicariate of Rome, is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church under the direct jurisdiction of the pope, who is Bishop of Rome and hence the supreme pontiff and head of the worldwide Catholic Church. As ...

. In 1902 he was given a position in the

Roman Curia The Roman Curia () comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution of which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use ...

, and in 1906 was promoted to the post of Undersecretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, the forerunner of what is today the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State.

Monsignor Monsignor (; ) is a form of address or title for certain members of the clergy in the Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" can be abbreviated as Mons.... or Msgr. In some ...

Benigni proved to have special gifts for relations with the press. Beginning in 1907, he provided a daily news bulletin, '' La Corrispondenza di Roma'', which became from 1909 to 1912 ''La Correspondance de Rome'' and in 1913-1914 ''Cahiers de Rome''. This gave him influence over the contents of publications in many countries. He set up among his contacts the Sodalitium Pianum (Fellowship of Pius V), to report to him those thought to be teaching

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

doctrines. His influence waned during the pontificate of

Pope Benedict XV Pope Benedict XV (; ; born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, ; 21 November 1854 – 22 January 1922) was head of the Catholic Church from 1914 until his death in January 1922. His pontificate was largely overshadowed by World War I a ...

(1914 - 1922) making him ecclesiastically an isolated figure. He became close to the

Fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

movement (in 1923 he founded the ''Entente romaine de Défense social'') seeing in it an ally for his anti-Modernist and anti-liberal aims. From 1906 to 1933 he authored a history of the Church in five volumes, spanning from Jesus Christ until the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, but died before finishing it. While staying in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

, he also published an anti-semitic pamphlet supporting the

blood libel Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation) is an antisemitic canardTurvey, Brent E. ''Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis'', Academic Press, 2008, p. 3. "Blood libel: An accusation of ritual mu ...

, an

antisemitic trope Antisemitic tropes, also known as antisemitic canards or antisemitic libels, are " sensational reports, misrepresentations or fabrications" about Jews as an ethnicity or Judaism as a religion. Since the 2nd century, malicious allegations of J ...

claiming that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood in ceremonies. Monsignor Benigni passed away in Rome in 1934, aged 72; his writings and other documents in his possession at his death can be consulted at the

Vatican Apostolic Archive The Vatican Apostolic Archive (; ), formerly known as the Vatican Secret Archive (; ), is the central repository in the Vatican City of all acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope, as the sovereign of Vatican City, owns the material held ...

.The Archive Fonds

References

External links

* , of which the above article is a summary. {{DEFAULTSORT:Benigni, Umberto 1862 births 1934 deaths Clergy from Perugia Modernism in the Catholic Church Catholicism and far-right politics Academics from Perugia