Fr David Strong SJ, The Australian dictionary of Jesuit biography 1848-2015, Second Edition, 2017:
Torinese, Nicola

Pastor, theologian; born Caulonia, Italy, 8 March 1914; died Napoli, Italy, 24 November 2006, aged 92.

The Province of Italy gave the following account of the life of Nicola Torinese, translated from the Italian by John Begley.

For a long time Torinese was known as the Father of the Jehovah's Witnesses, such was his commitment in his study of that sect. His zeal enlightened believers and equipped them with the truth, and defended them from the devious sophistry and false propaganda of the sect's adept and zealous exponents. He was very well prepared for such work.

He came to the Society as a novice from the regional seminary of Catanzaro, 3 August 1933. This seminary in the 1930s provided the Society with a good number of sound vocations. After following the typical scholastics' programme, which concluded with two years of theology at the Gregorian University, he was assigned to Sri Lanka to teach theology in the seminary at Kandi. After a few years ministry in the late 1950s at St Ignatius' Church, Richmond, Australia, to the Italian migrants, he returned again to Italy to teach theology in the seminary of Reggio Calabria, and then in the seminary of Cuglieri.

When well advanced in years, aged seventy, he made Naples his final destination, in the House of the Exercises at Cappella Cangiani.

He exercised this ministry in the House and a little throughout Italy when he was strong enough to do so. But at Napoli-Cangiani he found a base for the study and the struggle against the spread of the sects, particularly the Jehovah's Witnesses. He was predisposed for it not only by his theological training and by his experience in different cultural contexts, but also by his temperament, which was drawn to controversy, and by his sound humanist leanings.

The twenty-four pamphlets of the Piccola Collana sui testimoni di Geova (The Short Anthology on the Jehovah's Witnesses), Il Piccolo Catechismo: Noi Crediamo (The Shorter Catechism: We believe) (four pamphlets), and the three pamphlets La verità sui Mormoni (The Truth about the Mormons) are products of that study and of his skills in the field of communication, dialectics and apologetics.

In each pamphlet he examined an argument of the statements publicised by the Witnesses, he shed light on its sophisms and fallacies, and he clearly set out the truth on the basis of the authentic Word of God.

Torinese was personally invited into parishes, communities, associations or committed groups, for meetings which also could go on for some days, and which would enlighten those attending and strengthen them in the joy of the true faith.

This constant commitment went hand in hand with his ministry of the Spiritual Exercises, led both within the House and outside it in other spiritual centres and in religious communities.

Although burdened by old age, he kept alive his sense of humour, steeped in deep faith.

(Reproduced by permission of Fr David Strong SJ.)