Giovanni Franzoni

Who is Giovanni Franzoni?

Giovanni Battista Franzoni is a Christian communist and dissident Catholic theologian. A 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.

An Italian born in Varna, Bulgaria, Franzoni began his work as a priest in Florence, Italy in the 1950s.

Franzoni is the author of numerous theological works.

Franzoni is a longtime peace activist, having stood against the United States' invasions of Vietnam and Iraq.

Franzoni opposed the initiated beatification process for Pope John Paul II. In 2005, Franzoni joined ten other dissident theologians to appeal to Catholics critical of the canonization process to voice their concerns.

No longer a member of the Catholic priesthood, Franzoni is married to a Japanese pedagogist.