Giovanni Minzoni

Giovanni Minzoni (1 July 1885 – 23 August 1923) was an Italian anti-fascist Catholic priest who was killed by a fascist squad in 1923.

Early years Minzoni was born on 1 July 1885 to a middle-class family in Ravenna. He studied in a seminary and in 1909 was ordained priest. The following year he was appointed deputy pastor in the town of Argenta (in Emilia-Romagna), which he left in 1912 to go to study in the Scuola Sociale in Bergamo, where he was awarded his degree.

Called up by the army of the Kingdom of Italy in August 1916, he asked to serve as a military chaplain among the young soldiers at the Italian north-eastern front, and during a very critical moment in the Battle of the Piave River, he showed great courage, for which he was awarded the Silver Medal of Military Valor.

Antifascism and the scout movement At the end of World War I, Minzoni returned to Argenta, where he joined the Popular Party (Partito Popolare Italiano), the forerunner of the Christian Democrats. Although this was a rather centrist party, he became friends with the socialist labour union leader Natale Gaiba, who was assassinated by the blackshirts in 1923. This and many other episodes turned him against fascism. In addition to his ideas about social rights, he became increasingly convinced of the need for cooperation, thus becoming an open enemy of the fascist regime that strongly favoured corporativism.

Minzoni opposed the introduction of the fascist youth movement, the Opera Nazionale Balilla, in Argenta, because he believed the young people of the town should instead be educated in the values of Catholicism. After meeting Father Emilio Faggioli, who founded the scout group Bologna I in April 1917, and who became regional assistant for the Catholic Scouts in Emilia-Romagna, Minzoni became convinced of the virtues and good values taught by the Scout Movement. He therefore decided to found a scout group in his own parish.

In July 1923, Minzoni invited Faggioli to speak about the aims of the Scout Movement in the parish hall in Argenta. Local fascists vocally objected to the formation of a youth group not under the control of Mussolini and vowed that no scouts would enter the main square, to which Faggioli replied that the scouts would enter the main square as long as Minzoni was there. More than seventy scouts were subsequently enrolled.

Death Increasingly in conflict with the local Mussolinian establishment, Minzoni was killed around 10:30 pm on 23 August 1923, by two fascist "squadristi", Giorgio Molinari and Vittore Casoni, who smashed his skull with a club; they were reportedly following orders of the local Console di Milizia Italo Balbo, who was so shaken by the scandal that he had to resign from his post temporarily. All the accused were later acquitted at trial in 1925. Pope John Paul II wrote to the bishop of Ravenna on the 60th anniversary of Minzoni's death: