Blessed Giuseppe Toniolo

Giuseppe Toniolo (7 March 1845 – 7 October 1918) was an Italian Catholic economist, sociologist, and pioneer of Christian democracy. A leading political and social economist, Toniolo condemned both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism, advocating instead for an economic system in which social, judicial, and economic forces cooperate proportionately for the common good. Toniolo was an early Catholic advocate of labour unions and social reform. Describing the economy as an "integral part of the operative design of God," his work was inspired by Catholic social teaching. Toniolo was beatified on 29 April 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. 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. His maternal uncle was Alessandro. During his childhood the Toniolos moved several times since his father (an engineer) took different jobs at various places in the Veneto region. Toniolo attended high school at Saint Catherine's school in Venice before entering the college in Padua. It was there that he studied jurisprudence and took courses that Fedele Lampertico and Angelo Messedaglia led before graduating on 21 June 1867. But his father's sudden death caused an interruption of his studies though he later resumed his education prior to his graduation. Toniolo married Maria Schiratti in the morning on 4 September 1878 (the couple met after Maria's brothers Gaetano and Renato facilitated the union); the couple had seven children together with three who died in their childhoods. Rather than pursue a legal career he taught economics for more than four decades and was named as an assistant to the chair in juridical-political studies at his alma mater in 1868 before teaching in Venice at the Istituto Tecnico di Venezia from 1874 to 1878. This was interrupted once due to a short stint back in Padua.