Diego Venini

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Diego Venini (October 4, 1889 – July 20, 1981) was an Italian Catholic archbishop who served as the private secretary to Pope Pius XI and later as the papal almoner. He was born in Fiumelatte, a hamlet of Varenna on Lake Como, and was ordained a priest on July 6, 1913, by Cardinal Andrea Carlo Ferrari. He worked at Santa Tecla parish and as a spiritual assistant to the Sisters of Charity.

In 1913, Pope Benedict XV appointed Achille Ratti as Archbishop of Milan, and Ratti chose Venini as one of his secretaries. When Ratti became Pope Pius XI, Venini served as one of the pope’s private secretaries from 1922 to 1939. He was made a domestic prelate in 1935 and protonotary apostolic in 1936. After Pius XI’s death, he became chamberlain to Pope Pius XII.

In 1951, after the death of papal almoner Giuseppe Mignone, Venini was named papal almoner and titular archbishop of Adana, and was consecrated on February 4, 1951, by Eugène Tisserant in St. Peter’s Basilica. As almoner, he attended the funerals of Pius XII and John XXIII and the conclaves of 1958 and 1963, and he participated in all sessions of the Second Vatican Council. He retired as almoner on December 16, 1968, and died in Milan on July 20, 1981, at the age of 91. He received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1958.