Geno Baroni Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Shortly before his death in 1984, Geno explored South Africa’s apartheid townships and visited with Bishop Desmond Tutu. He died at age 54 on August 26, 1984, after a long struggle with cancer.

In 1977, he was offered position in the Carter administration as Housing and Urban Development Assistant Secretary for Neighborhood Development, Consumer Affairs, and Regulatory Functions. He helped push through the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which propped up revitalization processes in urban areas around the country. In a 1987 speech at Catholic University Arthur J. Naparstek, then president of the Geno C. Baroni society, noted that Baroni “attained the highest Government post a Catholic priest has ever achieved. He became a bureaucrat because he knew the only change in the bureaucracy comes through a change in the people.”

Fr. Baroni was instrumental in founding the National Italian American Foundation in 1975 and served as its first president.

In 1971, Fr. Baroni founded the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs which is now headquartered at The Catholic University of America.

Baroni and the NCUEA forged substantial pieces of social legislation in the 1970s, and helped to launch the careers of future national leaders. U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski, U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur, and Arthur J. Naparstek, Dean of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University, worked with Baroni to write the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.

Baroni was a kind of godfather of the US Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CHD). In the words of Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-OH, Baroni was a “visionary and crusader whose concern was always human development.” He spearheaded today’s CHD when he gathered a group of people in 1969 to form an institution to study the underlying causes of poverty. Understanding the strife still prevalent in urban areas, Baroni, in 1970, convoked the first national conference of urban ethnic neighborhoods and inaugurated the National Neighborhood Coalition. In 1971, Baroni was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board.

In 1969 he gathered a group of people to form an institution to study the underlying causes of poverty. With strife still prevalent in urban areas, Baroni, in 1970, convoked the first national conference of urban ethnic neighborhoods and inaugurated the National Neighborhood Coalition.

Baroni was the Catholic Coordinator for the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech; he also marched with King in Selma, Alabama, in March 1965.

Baroni graduated from Mount St. Mary’s College in 1952 and Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in 1956 (both are part of what is now Mount St. Mary’s University). He was ordained a priest in 1956 and first served in Johnstown and Altoona, PA, later being assigned to Sts. Paul and Augustine parish in Washington, D.C. (1960–1965), where he ministered to the urban poor. He was appointed executive director of Office of Urban Affairs of the Washington Archdiocese (1965–1967), then director of the Urban Taskforce of the US Catholic Conference (1967–1970).

Msgr. Geno Baroni (October 24, 1930 – August 26, 1984) was an American Roman Catholic priest and social activist who was instrumental in founding the National Italian American Foundation in 1975 and served as its first president.

Baroni was born on October 24, 1930, in Acosta, Pennsylvania, the son of Italian immigrants.