Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Saint Alphonsus Liguori was a Neapolitan lawyer who became a priest and a missionary to the poor. He founded the Redemptorists and later served as bishop of Sant’Agata dei Goti. He is honored as a Doctor of the Church and a master of moral theology. His obligatory memorial falls on August 1, the anniversary of his death.

He was born on September 27, 1696, at Marianella near Naples, into a wealthy noble family. At the age of sixteen he earned a doctorate in civil and canon law, and for eight years he was among the most highly regarded lawyers in Naples. In 1723 he gave up the practice of law. Benedict XVI said that he did so out of indignation at the corruption and injustice in the courts, and his biographers also link this decision to a painful disappointment he suffered during one of his cases. Against his father’s wishes he decided to become a priest.

He was ordained a priest on December 21, 1726. He preached in the poorest districts of Naples and taught their inhabitants to pray; the groups that gathered in the evenings in homes and workshops grew into the so-called evening chapels. During missions in the interior of the Kingdom of Naples he came to know shepherds and peasants living in religious and material neglect. For them, on November 9, 1732, he founded at Scala the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, whose members brought popular missions to the most remote villages.

At a time when the Jansenist mentality presented God as severe, his Moral Theology joined fidelity to the Church’s teaching with gentleness toward penitents. For ordinary believers he wrote accessible books, among them The Glories of Mary, Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and The Practice of Loving Jesus Christ, regarded as his masterpiece. He used to repeat that whoever prays will be saved. He also wrote the words and music of the popular Italian Christmas carol Tu scendi dalle stelle.

In 1762 he became bishop of Sant’Agata dei Goti and cared especially for the formation of the clergy, although he was worn down by a painful arthritis. In 1775 Pope Pius VI accepted his resignation, and Alphonsus went to live in his congregation’s house at Pagani in Campania. There he went through a heavy trial: the Redemptorist rule, submitted for approval to the authorities of the Kingdom of Naples, was altered without his knowledge, and he, old and ailing, signed it in good faith. As a result, in 1780 the same pope recognized only the houses in the Papal States as the congregation, and Alphonsus remained separated from them until his death. The unity of the Redemptorists was restored in 1793.

He died at Pagani on August 1, 1787. Benedict XVI recalled that Pius VI, on hearing of his death, exclaimed: “He was a saint!” Pius VII beatified him on September 15, 1816, and Gregory XVI canonized him on May 26, 1839. In 1871 Pius IX declared him a Doctor of the Church, and in 1950 Pius XII made him patron of confessors and moral theologians.