Antonio Socci

Antonio Socci (born January 18, 1959) is an Italian journalist, writer and television host.

Biography

Antonio Socci was born in Siena, the son and grandson of miners. In his high school years he militated in left-wing circles before joining Communion and Liberation in 1977, to which he later did not spare lively criticism. He attended the University of Siena, where he took Franco Fortini's courses in literary criticism and where in 1983 he graduated in Modern Literature with a thesis in Romance philology on the Divine Comedy. In 1984 she began working at the weekly newspaper Il Sabato, and married. She returned to Siena for three years to direct the culture office of the Province, having won the relevant public competition. In 1985 Caterina, his first daughter, was born, the following year Maria and in 1997 Michelangelo, his third child.

Returning to Il Sabato with the three-part journalistic investigation into the crisis in the Catholic world entitled Thirteen Years of Our History (1897), he was denounced with Roberto Fontolan to the ecclesiastical tribunal of the Milan Diocese by the association of progressive Catholics Rosa Bianca for some negative statements about Giuseppe Lazzati. Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini mediated the matter, to which Il Sabato adhered by republishing the investigation with a preface in which philosopher Augusto del Noce stated that there was no criticism "for the moral figure of Lazzati." He was director of the magazine. He directed the international magazine 30Giorni nella Chiesa e nel mondo for a few months, then returned to Il Sabato and after its closure in 1993 moved to Il Giornale as a columnist. He has collaborated and collaborates with Il Foglio, Libero and Panorama.

In 2002, he was called to RAI as deputy director of Rai 2. He was the author and host of the program Excalibur (2002–04). From 2004 to 2020 he was director, on behalf of RAI, of the School of Broadcast Journalism at the University of Perugia. He left the post following controversy arising from a tweet of his in which he attacked Pope Francis. With the publication in 2014 of his book Non è Francesco (It's Not Francis), Socci set out his personal thesis about the invalidity of Pope Francis' election, an argument, however, that has never been considered by any canonist, and which also cost the author criticism from Maurizio Crippa in Il Foglio. In the same book, Socci expressed his disappointment with the actions of the Pontiff, judged to be reticent about the massacres of persecuted Christians around the world and devoted instead to denouncing the faults of the Catholics whom he believes he should instead defend and comfort.

He has often criticized the Pontiff both for his unconditional openness to immigrants, for certain statements that would increase disorientation among some of the faithful, and for attempts at a dialogue he says is impossible on a theological and doctrinal level with other faiths.

In The Final Prophecy, published in January 2016 in the form of an open letter to the pope, Socci sounds the alarm about a looming apocalypse on the Church and the world heralded by signs of the times such as Islamic terrorist acts. After receiving a copy of The Final Prophecy, Pope Francis sent a message of thanks to Antonio Socci, who posted it on his official website, along with his response.

Since December 13, 2021, with an article published in Libero, he suddenly changed his opinion of Pope Francis in a positive direction. He later repeatedly defended the Pontiff's actions, calling on Giorgia Meloni and the Italian center-right to follow Pope Francis' political agenda.

Works

• Obiettivo Tarkovskij. L'opera, la spiritualità, il pensiero di un grande del cinema del '900 (1987; with preface by Krzysztof Zanussi)
• Tredici anni della nostra storia. 1974-1987 (1888; with Roberto Fontolan; with introduction by Augusto del Noce)
• Pio IX e Garcia Moreno. Il papa scomodo e il presidente cattolico (1988; with Rino Camilleri)
• Il gigante e la cascina. Che cosa succede quando una libera iniziativa rompe la regola della spartizione? Storia di un gruppo di giovani romani e del loro scontro con il Palazzo (1989; edited by A. Socci; introduction by Giancarlo Cesana)
• La società dell'allegria. Il partito piemontese contro la chiesa di don Bosco (1989; reprinted in 2004 as La dittatura anticattolica. Il caso don Bosco e l'altra faccia del Risorgimento)
• Cristiani. L'avventura umana di 14 santi (1991; with introduction by Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër)
• Cristiani. Vite di santi (1993; with Lorenzo Cappelletti)
• C'era una volta il sacro. Stupidario ecclesiastico (1994; with preface by Vittorio Messori)
• I nuovi perseguitati. Indagine sulla intolleranza anticristiana nel nuovo secolo del martirio (2002)
• Uno strano cristiano. Incontrare Dio nel mondo di oggi: le ragioni di una fede che cambia la vita (2003)
• In difesa della vita. Legge 40, fecondazione assistita e mass media (2005; with Carlo Casini)
• Mistero Medjugorje (2005)
• Com'è bello il mondo, com'è grande Dio. Ipotesi sul nuovo millennio (2005)
• La dittatura anticattolica. Il caso don Bosco e l'altra faccia del Risorgimento (2005)
• I santi secondo me (2006)
• Il genocidio censurato. Aborto: un miliardo di vittime innocenti (2006)
• Il quarto segreto di Fátima (2006)
• Il segreto di Padre Pio (2007)
• Indagine su Gesù (2008)
• I segreti di Karol Wojtyla (2009)
• Caterina. Diario di un padre nella tempesta (2010)
• La guerra contro Gesù, Collana Saggi italiani (2011)
• I giorni della tempesta (2012)
• Lettera a mia figlia. Sull'amore e la vita nel tempo del dolore (2013)
• Tornati dall'Aldilà (2014)
• Non è Francesco. La Chiesa nella grande tempesta (2014)
• Avventurieri dell'eterno (2015)
• La profezia finale. Lettera a Papa Francesco sulla Chiesa in tempo di guerra (2016)
• La casa dei giovani eroi. Storia di Caterina e altri guerrieri (2017)
• Amor perduto. L'Inferno di Dante per contemporanei (2017)
• Traditi sottomessi invasi. L'estinzione di un popolo, senza figli, senza lavoro, senza futuro (2018)
• Il segreto di Benedetto XVI. Perché è ancora Papa (2018)
• Il dio mercato, la Chiesa e l'Anticristo (2019)

External links

• Official website
• Works by Antonio Socci at Open Library