Giovanni Minzoni

Giovanni Minzoni was born to a middle-class family. He studied in 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. Admired both for his courage and determination to cooperate with farmers during World War I Father Minzoni was sent to the front between Italy and Austro-Hungary as an army chaplain.

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.

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