Giuseppe Toniolo was an Italian Roman Catholic economist, sociologist, and pioneer of Christian democracy.
20 Facts About Giuseppe Toniolo
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Giuseppe Toniolo was an early Catholic advocate of labour unions and social reform.
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Giuseppe Toniolo was beatified on 29 April 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome.
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Giuseppe Toniolo was born in Treviso on 7 March 1845 as the first of four children to Antonio Toniolo and Isabella Alessandrini; he lived in the Sant'Andrea parish area.
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Giuseppe Toniolo attended high school at Saint Catherine's school in Venice before entering the college in Padua.
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Giuseppe Toniolo married Maria Schiratti in the morning on 4 September 1878 ; the couple had seven children together with three who died in their childhoods.
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Giuseppe Toniolo was named as a professor at the Pisa college in 1883 and held the chair of political economics there until his death in 1918.
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Giuseppe Toniolo defended the importance of religious values in politics and economics despite some Christians shunning politics due to the masonic and anti-clerical elements who had helped for Italian unification in 1860.
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Giuseppe Toniolo developed theories of social teaching which formed a middle path between the laissez-faire economics and the state-centered socialism that followers of Karl Marx proposed and advocated.
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Giuseppe Toniolo advocated worker protection and in 1889 founded a union to fight for worker rights and worked to limit the work week while striving to protect women and children.
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Giuseppe Toniolo believed in institutions which could mediate between individuals and the state from the household to unions and professional associations.
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Giuseppe Toniolo led the Christian social action movement after 1900 which became somewhat similar to social activism in the United States.
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Giuseppe Toniolo knew Monsignor Georg Ratzinger - the granduncle of Pope Benedict XVI.
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Giuseppe Toniolo was a friend to Bartolo Longo and the likes of Cardinal Andrea Carlo Ferrari and Bishop Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi lauded his thought and activism.
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Giuseppe Toniolo died on 7 October 1918 and his remains lie buried in the Santa Maria Assunta church at Pieve di Soligo.
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Giuseppe Toniolo's remains were exhumed on 20 September 2011 for canonical inspection and later reinterred that 7 October in the same tomb though in a different marble sarcophagus.
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Theologians assessed Giuseppe Toniolo's writings to assess if there was an adherence to doctrine and approved them of possessing no doctrinal errors in a decree issued on 1 June 1947.
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The formal introduction to the cause came under Pope Pius XII on 7 January 1951 in which Giuseppe Toniolo became titled as a Servant of God.
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Giuseppe Toniolo's beatification depended upon a single miracle receiving papal approval.
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The miracle that allowed for Giuseppe Toniolo's beatification was the healing of Francesco Bortolini who was healed from serious injuries after suffering from a fall in 2006 and invoking Giuseppe Toniolo's intercession.