Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Alphonsus Liguori was born on September 27, 1696, in a suburb of Naples, Italy. He was the eldest of eight children--four boys and four girls. Belonging economically and socially to the upper class, Alphonsus received an excellent education in the humanities and in the study of civil and Church law and earned a double doctorate from the University of Naples. Since the physical conditions of myopia and chronic asthma prevented Alphonsus from following his father into the military, Giuseppe steered him to the legal profession, all the while planning an advantageous marriage for his son.

Alphonsus rejected both! After losing an important court case, Liguori walked out of the court in disgust exclaiming, "Ah, world, I know you now!" He likewise refused more than two paternally planned betrothals. His scrupulosity concerning sexual matters did not make him a prime candidate for courtship or marriage. Alphonsus and his father attended annual retreats given by the Vincentians and the Jesuits. It was during a Vincentian retreat in 1722 that Liguori experienced a radical conversion. Although he was a lawyer at the time, he rejected his secular lifestyle for a more spiritual one, and made a personal vow of celibacy.

Don Giuseppe was not at all pleased and the growing tension between father and son--both equally stubborn and volatile--reached the explosion point when Alphonsus announced his decision to become a priest. He considered joining the Oratorians or the Theatines, but his father would not hear of it. Alphonsus compromised and agreed to enter the diocesan priesthood.

By August 1726, Alphonsus was on the verge of a psychosomatic breakdown and received the last rites. He slowly recovered and by December 21 he was well enough to be ordained a priest. At this time, he introduced an innovative apostolic technique called the Evening Chapels. This was a program whereby Alphonsus and a few of his priest friends organized and trained lay catechists. These catechists would then work out of slums, catechizing the poor lazzaroni, the beggars, and street people of Naples.

Despite his apostolic activism, Liguori was bothered by long bouts of introspection and scrupulosity over his new obligations and burdens as a priest. Nevertheless, his mission preaching with the Propaganda continued. Obeying doctor's orders, Alphonsus later departed from Naples for a bit of rest and recreation in the hills above the Amalfi coast. There, despite his work in the slums of Naples, he was shocked by the spiritual abandonment of the poor mountaineers and began catechizing them in the small chapel of Holy Mary of the Mountains. After returning to Naples, he continued to worry about these poor souls and wonder where were the priests who could help them.

After he returned to Naples, a woman entered his life! Sister Marie Celeste Crostarosa (1696-1755) was a Neapolitan just one month younger than Alphonsus. Their encounter brought about another radical change for Alphonsus. Celeste, a former Carmelite now living in a Visitation convent at Scala, began to claim divine revelations concerning the founding of a new institute for women, whose Rule she was to write under divine inspiration. What he did not know then was that within a year she would claim she had received divinely revealed plans for a new missionary institute of men, of whom Liguori was to be the founder. But his scrupulosity and his reluctance to make sudden decisions held him back and Alphonsus spent almost a year consulting theologians in Naples before he finally accepted his role as founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, which took its first shaky steps on November 9, 1732. Fifteen years later, the Congregation had grown to one hundred fifty members.

During his stint as rector major and itinerant missionary, Liguori joined the struggle against moral rigorism.. Although he had to walk a tightrope between the rigorists and the laxists, lest his own Congregation be suppressed, as were the Jesuits, Alphonsus' moral teachings were vindicated by the Holy See during his lifetime. After his death, Rome gave its seal of approval, declaring him a Doctor of the Church and the patron of moralists and confessors. His literary output, however, was not limited to moral theology. His pen was as apostolic as his preaching. His one hundred eleven published works were directed to every category of Christians: bishops, priests, religious, and laity. Liguori's writing spanned fifty productive years.

In March 1762, Clement XIII appointed Alphonsus bishop of St. Agatha of the Goths. Alphonsus took possession of his diocese in July 1762. Despite his poor health, he threw himself into this new ministry with vigor. He organized general missions for the diocese that utilized his own Redemptorist missionaries and those of the Propaganda. He also established social welfare programs for the poor and even opened his episcopal palace to the needy. Recurring attacks of ill health and a growing number of complaints against his reformist zeal prompted Alphonsus to offer his resignation several times. Finally, in May 1775, Pius VI accepted his resignation.

Alphonsus returned to Pagani "to prepare for death." Here he was to suffer the biggest disappointment of his life. The Congregation's Rule, which Benedict XIV had approved in 1749, had never received royal approval, making the continued existence of the Congregation precarious at best. Thus, in 1779 two Redemptorists, Fathers Cimino and Caione, were sent to negotiate with the royal court for approval. The eighty-three-year-old Liguori, deaf, practically blind, and unable to read or write, put complete trust in his emissaries. The almost senile rector major was duped into signing this governmental Regolamento. The vows of religion were changed to mere oaths, the vow of poverty disappeared altogether, the oath of perseverance was omitted, and the local bishops were given the power over the internal affairs of the Congregation. General Chapters were wiped out of the text completely.

This document was delivered to Liguori in March 1780, and when the radical changes were explained to him, he went into a severe depression. The Pope was chagrined at the Congregation's acceptance of the Regolamento, which so blatantly contradicted the papal Rule, and dismissed Alphonsus and his Neapolitan confreres from the Congregation. Only the Redemptorists within the Papal States continued as canonically approved Redemptorists. Six years after this tragedy, on August 1, 1787, Liguori died, still technically outside the Congregation he had founded.

Adapted from Joseph W. Oppitz, C.Ss.R, "A Short Biography," (84, #8, 4-11) Liguorian Magazine, © 1996, Liguori Publications. All rights reserved. Copyright permission secured.

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