Giovanni Battista Franzoni was born on November 8, 1928, Varna, Bulgaria and died on July 13, 2017, Canneto Sabino, Fara in Sabina, Italy.
He was an Italian Christian communist and dissident Catholic theologian.
Franzoni was popular abbot at St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, one of the most popular churches in Rome, he was defrocked by Pope Paul VI, with whom he had feuded over theology, during the Cold War, after he had announced his intention to vote for the Italian Communist Party in 1976, which Franzoni had joined in June of that year.
He began his work as a priest in Florence, Italy in the 1950s.
Franzoni was the author of numerous theological works.
Franzoni was a longtime peace activist, having stood against the United States’ armed involvements in Vietnam and Iraq.
He opposed the initiated beatification process for Pope John Paul II.
During 2005, he joined ten other dissident theologians to appeal to Catholics critical of the canonization process to voice their concerns.
When he was no longer a member of the Catholic priesthood.
Franzoni was married to a Japanese pedagogist.
Giovanni Battista Franzoni passed away at 88 years old.