St. Alphonsus Liguori
Born: September 27, 1696
Died: August 1, 1787
Canonized: May 26, 1839, by Pope Gregory XVI
Feast Day: August 1
Patron Saint of: vocations, theologians
Born at Marianella, near Naples, 27 September, 1696; died at Nocera de'
Pagani, 1 August, 1787. The eighteenth century was not an age remarkable for
depth of spiritual life, yet it produced three of the greatest missionaries of
the Church, St. Leonard of Port Maurice, St. Paul of the Cross, and St.
Alphonsus Liguori. Alphonsus Mary Antony John Cosmas Damian Michael Gaspard de'
Liguori was born in his father's country house at Marianella near Naples, on
Tuesday, 27 September, 1696. He was baptized two days later in the church of Our
Lady of the Virgins, in Naples. The family was an old and noble one, though the
branch to which the Saint belonged had become somewhat impoverished. Alphonsus's
father, Don Joseph de' Liguori was a naval officer and Captain of the Royal
Galleys. The Saint's mother was of Spanish descent, and if, as there can be
little doubt, race is an element in individual character, we may see in
Alphonsus's Spanish blood some explanation of the enormous tenacity of purpose
which distinguished him from his earliest years. "I know his obstinacy", his
father said of him as a young man; "when he once makes up his mind he is
inflexible". Not many details have come down to us of Alphonsus's childhood. He
was the eldest of seven children and the hope of his house. The boy was bright
and quick beyond his years, and made great progress in all kinds of learning. In
addition his father made him practice the harpsichord for three hours a day, and
at the age of thirteen he played with the perfection of a master. Riding and
fencing were his recreations, and an evening game of cards; he tells us that he
was debarred from being a good shot by his bad sight. In early manhood he became
very fond of the opera, but only that he might listen to the music, for when the
curtain went up he took his glasses off, so as not to see the players
distinctly. The Neapolitan stage at this time was in a good state, but the Saint
had from his earliest years an ascetic repugnance to theatres, a repugnance
which he never lost. The childish fault for which he most reproached himself in
after-life was resisting his father too strongly when he was told to take part
in a drawing-room play. Alphonsus was not sent to school but was educated by
tutors under his father's eye. At the age of 16, on 21 January 1713, he took his
degree as Doctor of Laws, although twenty was the age fixed by the statutes. He
said himself that he was so small at the time as to be almost buried in his
doctor's gown and that all the spectators laughed. Soon after this the boy began
his studies for the Bar, and about the age of nineteen practiced his profession
in the courts. In the eight years of his career as advocate, years crowded with
work, he is said never to have lost a case. Even if there be some exaggeration
in this, for it is not in an advocate's power always to be on the winning side,
the tradition shows that he was extraordinarily able and successful. In fact,
despite his youth, he seems at the age of 27 to have been one of the leaders of
the Neapolitan Bar.
Alphonsus, like so many saints, had an excellent father and a saintly mother.
Don Joseph de' Liguori had his faults. He was somewhat worldly and ambitious, at
any rate for his son, and was rough tempered when opposed. But he was a man of
genuine faith and piety and stainless life, and he meant his son to be the same.
Even when taking him into society in order to arrange a good marriage for him,
he wished Alphonsus to put God first, and every year father and son would make a
retreat together in some religious house. Alphonsus, assisted by divine grace,
did not disappoint his father's care. A pure and modest boyhood passed into a
manhood without reproach. A companion, Balthasar Cito, who afterwards became a
distinguished judge, was asked in later years if Alphonsus had ever shown signs
of levity in his youth. He answered emphatically: "Never! It would be a
sacrilege to say otherwise." The Saint's confessor declared that he preserved
his baptismal innocence till death. Still there was a time of danger.
There can be little doubt but that the young Alphonsus with his high spirits
and strong character was ardently attached to his profession, and on the way to
be spoilt by the success and popularity which it brought. About the year 1722,
when he was 26 years old, he began to go constantly into society, to neglect
prayer and the practices of piety which had been an integral part of his life,
and to take pleasure in the attention with which he was everywhere received.
"Banquets, entertainments, theatres," he wrote later on -- "these are the
pleasures of the world, but pleasures which are filled with the bitterness of
gall and sharp thorns. Believe me who have experienced it, and now weep over
it." In all this there was no serious sin, but there was no high sanctity
either, and God, Who wished His servant to be a saint and a great saint, was now
to make him take the road to Damascus. In 1723 there was a lawsuit in the courts
between a Neapolitan nobleman, whose name has not come down to us, and the Grand
Duke of Tuscany, in which property valued at 500,000 ducats, that is to say,
$500,000 or £100,000, was at stake. Alphonsus was one of the leading counsel; we
do not know on which side. When the day came the future Saint made a brilliant
opening speech and sat down confident of victory. But before he called a witness
the opposing counsel said to him in chilling tones: "Your arguments are wasted
breath. You have overlooked a document which destroys your whole case." "What
document is that?" said Alphonsus somewhat piqued. "Let us have it." A piece of
evidence was handed to him which he had read and re-read many times, but always
in a sense the exact contrary of that which he now saw it to have. The poor
advocate turned pale. He remained thunderstruck for a moment; then said in a
broken voice: "You are right. I have been mistaken. This document gives you the
case." In vain those around him and even the judge on the bench tried to console
him. He was crushed to the earth. He thought his mistake would be ascribed not
to oversight but to deliberate deceit. He felt as if his career was ruined, and
left the court almost beside himself, saying: "World, I know you now. Courts,
you shall never see me more." For three days he refused all food. Then the storm
subsided, and he began to see that his humiliation had been sent him by God to
break down his pride and wean him from the world. Confident that some special
sacrifice was required of him, though he did not yet know what, he did not
return to his profession, but spent his days in prayer, seeking to know God's
will. After a short interval -- we do not know exactly how long--the answer
came. On 28 August, 1723, the young advocate had gone to perform a favorite act
of charity by visiting the sick in the Hospital for Incurables. Suddenly he
found himself surrounded by a mysterious light; the house seemed to rock, and an
interior voice said: "Leave the world and give thyself to Me." This occurred
twice. Alphonsus left the Hospital and went to the church of the Redemption of
Captives. Here he laid his sword before the statue of Our Lady, and made a
solemn resolution to enter the ecclesiastical state, and furthermore to offer
himself as a novice to the Fathers of the Oratory. He knew that trials were
before him. His father, already displeased at the failure of two plans for his
son's marriage, and exasperated at Alphonsus's present neglect of his
profession, was likely to offer a strenuous opposition to his leaving the world.
So indeed it proved. He had to endure a real persecution for two months. In the
end a compromise was arrived at. Don Joseph agreed to allow his son to become a
priest, provided he would give up his proposal joining the Oratory, and would
continue to live at home. To this Alphonsus by the advice of his director,
Father Thomas Pagano, himself an Oratorian, agreed. Thus was he left free for
his real work, the founding of a new religious congregation. On 23 October of
the same year, 1723, the Saint put on the clerical dress. In September of the
next year he received the tonsure and soon after joined the association of
missionary secular priests called the "Neapolitan Propaganda", membership of
which did not entail residence in common. In December 1724, he received minor
orders, and the subdiaconate in September 1725. On 6 April 1726, he was ordained
deacon, and soon after preached his first sermon. On 21 December of the same
year, at the age of thirty, he was ordained priest. For six years he labored in
and around Naples, giving missions for the Propaganda and preaching to the
lazzaroni of the capital. With the aid of two laymen, Peter Barbarese, a
schoolmaster, and Nardone, an old soldier, both of whom he converted from an
evil life, he enrolled thousands of lazzaroni in a sort of confraternity called
the "Association of the Chapels", which exists to this day. Then God called him
to his life work.
In April 1729, the Apostle of China, Matthew Ripa, founded a missionary college
in Naples, which became known colloquially as the "Chinese College". A few
months later Alphonsus left his father's house and went to live with Ripa,
without, however, becoming a member of his society. In his new abode he met a
friend of his host's, Father Thomas Falcoia, of the Congregation of the "Pii
Operarii" (Pious Workers), and formed with him the great friendship of his life.
There was a considerable difference in age between the two men, for Falcoia,
born in 1663, was now sixty-six, and Alphonsus only thirty-three, but the old
priest and the young had kindred souls. Many years before, in Rome, Falcoia had
been shown a vision of a new religious family of men and women whose particular
aim should be the perfect imitation of the virtues of Our Lord. He had even
tried to form a branch of the Institute by uniting twelve priests in a common
life at Tarentum, but the community soon broke up. In 1719, together with a
Father Filangieri, also one of the "Pii Operarii", he had refounded a
Conservatorium of religious women at Scala on the mountains behind Amalfi. But
as he drew up a rule for them, formed from that of the Visitation nuns, he does
not seem to have had any clear idea of establishing the new institute of his
vision. God, however, intended the new institute to begin with these nuns of
Scala. In 1724, soon after Alphonsus left the world, a postulant, Julia
Crostarosa, born in Naples on 31 October 1696, and hence almost the same age as
the Saint, entered the convent of Scala. She became known in religion as Sister
Maria Celeste. In 1725, while still a novice, she had a series of visions in
which she saw a new order (apparently of nuns only) similar to that revealed to
Falcoia many years before. Even its Rule was made known to her. She was told to
write it down and show it to the director of the convent, that is to Falcoia
himself. While affecting to treat the novice with severity and to take no notice
of her visions, the director was surprised to find that the Rule which she had
written down was a realization of what had been so long in his mind. He
submitted the new Rule to a number of theologians, who approved of it, and said
it might be adopted in the convent of Scala, provided the community would accept
it. But when the question was put to the community, opposition began. Most were
in favor of accepting, but the superior objected and appealed to Filangieri,
Falcoia's colleague in establishing the convent, and now, as General of the "Pii
Operarii", his superior. Filangieri forbade any change of rule and removed
Falcoia from all communication with the convent. Matters remained thus for some
years. About 1729, however, Filangieri died, and on 8 October 1730, Falcoia was
consecrated Bishop of Castellamare. He was now free, subject to the approval of
the Bishop of Scala, to act with regard to the convent as he thought best. It
happened that Alphonsus, ill and overworked, had gone with some companions to
Scala in the early summer of 1730. Unable to be idle, he had preached to the
goatherds of the mountains with such success that Nicolas Guerriero, Bishop of
Scala, begged him to return and give a retreat in his cathedral.
Falcoia, hearing of this, begged his friend to give a retreat to the nuns of his
Conservatorium at the same time. Alphonsus agreed to both requests and set out
with his two friends, John Mazzini and Vincent Mannarini, in September 1730. The
result of the retreat to the nuns was that the young priest, who before had been
prejudiced by reports in Naples against the proposed new Rule, became its firm
supporter, and even obtained permission from the Bishop of Scala for the change.
In 1731, the convent unanimously adopted the new Rule, together with a habit of
red and blue, the traditional colors of Our Lord's own dress. One branch of the
new Institute seen by Falcoia in vision was thus established. The other was not
to be long delayed. No doubt Thomas Falcoia had for some time hoped that the
ardent young priest, who was so devoted to him, might, under his direction, be
the founder of the new Order he had at heart. a fresh vision of Sister Maria
Celeste seemed to show that such was the will of God. On 3 October 1731, the eve
of the feast of St. Francis, she saw Our Lord with St. Francis on His right hand
and a priest on His left. A voice said "This is he whom I have chosen to be head
of My Institute, the Prefect General of a new Congregation of men who shall work
for My glory." The priest was Alphonsus. Soon after, Falcoia made known to the
latter his vocation to leave Naples and establish an order of missionaries at
Scala, who should work above all for the neglected goatherds of the mountains. A
year of trouble and anxiety followed.
The Superior of the Propaganda and even Falcoia's friend, Matthew Ripa, opposed
the project with all their might. But Alphonsus's director, Father Pagano;
Father Fiorillo, a great Dominican preacher; Father Manulio, Provincial of the
Jesuits; and Vincent Cutica, Superior of the Vincentians, supported the young
priest, and, 9 November 1732, the "Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer", or
as it was called for 17 years, "of the Most Holy Savior", was begun in a little
hospice belonging to the nuns of Scala. Though St. Alphonsus was founder and de
facto head of the Institute, its general direction in the beginning, as well as
the direction of Alphonsus's conscience, was undertaken by the Bishop of
Castellamare and it was not till the latter's death, 20 April 1743, that a
general chapter was held and the Saint was formally elected Superior-General. In
fact, in the beginning, the young priest in his humility would not be Superior
even of the house, judging one of his companions, John Baptist Donato, better
fitted for the post because he had already had some experience of community life
in another institute.
The early years, following the founding of the new order, were not promising.
Dissensions arose, the Saint's former friend and chief companion, Vincent
Mannarini, opposing him and Falcoia in everything. On 1 April 1733, all the
companions of Alphonsus except one lay brother, Vitus Curtius, abandoned him,
and founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, which, confined to the
Kingdom of Naples, was extinguished in 1860 by the Italian Revolution. The
dissensions even spread to the nuns, and Sister Maria Celeste herself left Scala
and founded a convent at Foggia, where she died in the odour of sanctity, 14
September 1755. She was declared Venerable 11 August 1901. Alphonsus, however,
stood firm; soon other companions arrived, and though Scala itself was given up
by the Fathers in 1738, by 1746 the new Congregation had four houses at Nocera
de' Pagani, Ciorani, Iliceto (now Deliceto), and Caposele, all in the Kingdom of
Naples. In 1749, the Rule and Institute of men were approved by Pope Benedict
XIV, and in 1750, the Rule and Institute of the nuns. Alphonsus was lawyer,
founder, religious superior, bishop, theologian, and mystic, but he was above
all a missionary, and no true biography of the Saint will neglect to give this
due prominence. From 1726 to 1752, first as a member of the Neapolitan
"Propaganda", and then as a leader of his own Fathers, he traversed the
provinces of Naples for the greater part of each year giving missions even in
the smallest villages and saving many souls. a special feature of his method was
the return of the missionaries, after an interval of some months, to the scene
of their labors to consolidate their work by what was called the "renewal of a
mission."
After 1752 Alphonsus gave fewer missions. His infirmities were increasing, and
he was occupied a good deal with his writings. His promotion to the episcopate
in 1762 led to a renewal of his missionary activity, but in a slightly different
form. The Saint had four houses, but during his lifetime it not only became
impossible in the Kingdom of Naples to get any more, but even the barest
toleration for those he had could scarcely be obtained. The cause of this was "regalism",
the omnipotence of kings even in matters spiritual, which was the system of
government in Naples as in all the Bourbon States. The immediate author of what
was practically a lifelong persecution of the Saint was the Marquis Tanucci, who
entered Naples in 1734. Naples had been part of the dominions of Spain since
1503, but in 1708 when Alphonsus was twelve years old, it was conquered by
Austria during the war of the Spanish Succession. In 1734, however, it was
reconquered by Don Carlos, the young Duke of Parma, great-grandson of Louis XIV,
and the independent Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was established. With
Don Carlos, or as he is generally called, Charles III, from his later title as
King of Spain, came the lawyer, Bernard Tanucci, who governed Naples as Prime
Minister and regent for the next 42 years. This was to be a momentous revolution
for Alphonsus. Had it happened a few years later, the new Government might have
found the Redemptorist Congregation already authorized, and as Tanucci's
anti-clerical policy rather showed itself in forbidding new Orders than, with
the exception of the Society of Jesus, in suppressing old ones, the Saint might
have been free to develop his work in comparative peace. As it was, he was
refused the royal exequatur to the Brief of Benedict XIV, and State recognition
of his Institute as a religious congregation till the day of his death. There
were whole years, indeed, in which the Institute seemed on the verge of summary
suppression. The suffering which this brought on Alphonsus, with his sensitive
and high-strung disposition, was very great, besides what was worse, the
relaxation of discipline and loss of vocations which it caused in the Order
itself. Alphonsus, however, was unflagging in his efforts with the Court. It may
be he was even too anxious, and on one occasion when he was over-whelmed by a
fresh refusal, his friend the Marquis Brancone, Minister for Ecclesiastical
Affairs and a man of deep piety, said to him gently: "It would seem as if you
placed all your trust here below"; on which the Saint recovered his peace of
mind. A final attempt to gain the royal approval, which seemed as if at last it
had been successful, led to the crowning sorrow of Alphonsus's life: the
division and apparent ruin of his Congregation and the displeasure of the Holy
See. This was in 1780, when Alphonsus was 83 years old. But, before relating the
episode of the "Regolamento", as it is called, we must speak of the period of
the Saint's episcopate which intervened.
In the year 1747, King Charles of Naples wished to make Alphonsus Archbishop of
Palermo, and it was only by the most earnest entreaties that he was able to
escape. In 1762, there was no escape and he was constrained by formal obedience
to the Pope to accept the Bishopric of St. Agatha of the Goths, a very small
Neapolitan diocese lying a few miles off the road from Naples to Capua. Here
with 30,000 uninstructed people, 400 mostly indifferent and sometimes scandalous
secular clergy, and seventeen more or less relaxed religious houses to look
after, in a field so overgrown with weeds that they seemed the only crop, he
wept and prayed and spent days and nights in unremitting labor for thirteen
years. More than once he faced assassination unmoved. In a riot which took place
during the terrible famine that fell upon Southern Italy in 1764, he saved the
life of the syndic of St. Agatha by offering his own to the mob. He fed the
poor, instructed the ignorant, reorganized his seminary, reformed his convents,
created a new spirit in his clergy, banished scandalous noblemen and women of
evil life with equal impartiality, brought the study of theology and especially
of moral theology into honor, and all the time was begging pope after pope to
let him resign his office because he was doing nothing for his diocese. To all
his administrative work we must add his continual literary labors, his many
hours of daily prayer, his terrible austerities, and a stress of illness which
made his life a martyrdom.
Eight times during his long life, without counting his last sickness, the Saint
received the sacraments of the dying, but the worst of all his illnesses was a
terrible attack of rheumatic fever during his episcopate, an attack which lasted
from May 1768, to June 1769, and left him paralyzed to the end of his days. It
was this which gave St. Alphonsus the bent head which we notice in the portraits
of him. So bent was it in the beginning, that the pressure of his chin produced
a dangerous wound in the chest. Although the doctors succeeded in straightening
the neck a little, the Saint for the rest of his life had to drink at meals
through a tube. He could never have said Mass again had not an Augustinian prior
shown him how to support himself on a chair so that with the assistance of an
acolyte he could raise the chalice to his lips. But in spite of his infirmities
both Clement XIII (1758-69) and Clement XIV (1769-74) obliged Alphonsus to
remain at his post. In February 1775, however, Pius VI was elected Pope, and the
following May he permitted the Saint to resign his see.
Alphonsus returned to his little cell at Nocera in July 1775, to prepare, as he
thought, for a speedy and happy death. Twelve years, however, still separated
him from his reward, years for the most part not of peace but of greater
afflictions than any which had yet befallen him. By 1777, the Saint, in addition
to four houses in Naples and one in Sicily, had four others at Scifelli,
Frosinone, St. Angelo a Cupclo, and Beneventum, in the States of the Church. In
case things became hopeless in Naples, he looked to these houses to maintain the
Rule and Institute. In 1780, a crisis arose in which they did this, yet in such
a way as to bring division in the Congregation and extreme suffering and
disgrace upon its founder. The crisis arose in this way. From the year 1759 two
former benefactors of the Congregation, Baron Sarnelli and Francis Maffei, by
one of those changes not uncommon in Naples, had become its bitter enemies, and
waged a vendetta against it in the law courts which lasted for 24 years.
Sarnelli was almost openly supported by the all-powerful Tanucci, and the
suppression of the Congregation at last seemed a matter of days, when on 26
October 1776, Tanucci, who had offended Queen Maria Carolina, suddenly fell from
power. Under the government of the Marquis della Sambuca, who, though a great
regalist, was a personal friend of the Saint's, there was promise of better
times, and in August 1779, Alphonsus's hopes were raised by the publication of a
royal decree allowing him to appoint superiors in his Congregation and to have a
novitiate and house of studies. The Government throughout had recognized the
good effect of his missions, but it wished the missionaries to be secular
priests and not a religious order. The Decree of 1779, however, seemed a great
step in advance. Alphonsus, having got so much, hoped to get a little more, and
through his friend, Mgr. Testa, the Grand Almoner, even to have his Rule
approved. He did not, as in the past, ask for an exequatur to the Brief of
Benedict XIV, for relations at the time were more strained than ever between the
Courts of Rome and Naples; but he hoped the king might give an independent
sanction to his Rule, provided he waived all legal right to hold property in
common, which he was quite prepared to do. It was all-important to the Fathers
to be able to rebut the charge of being an illegal religious congregation, which
was one of the chief allegations in the ever-adjourned and ever-impending action
by Baron Sarnelli. Perhaps in any case the submission of their Rule to a
suspicious and even hostile civil power was a mistake. At all events, it proved
disastrous in the result.
Alphonsus being so old and so inform -- he was 85, crippled, deaf, and nearly
blind -- his one chance of success was to be faithfully served by friends and
subordinates, and he was betrayed at every turn. His friend the Grand Almoner
betrayed him; his two envoys for negotiating with the Grand Almoner, Fathers
Majone and Cimino, betrayed him, consultors general though they were. His very
confessor and vicar general in the government of his Order, Father Andrew
Villani, joined in the conspiracy. In the end the Rule was so altered as to be
hardly recognizable, the very vows of religion being abolished. To this altered
Rule or "Regolamento", as it came to be called, the unsuspecting Saint was
induced to put his signature. It was approved by the king and forced upon the
stupefied Congregation by the whole power of the State. A fearful commotion
arose. Alphonsus himself was not spared. Vague rumors of impending treachery
had got about and had been made known to him, but he had refused to believe
them. "You have founded the Congregation and you have destroyed it", said one
Father to him. The Saint only wept in silence and tried in vain to devise some
means by which his Order might be saved. His best plan would have been to
consult the Holy See, but in this he had been forestalled. The Fathers in the
Papal States, with too precipitate zeal, in the very beginning denounced the
change of Rule to Rome. Pius VI, already deeply displeased with the Neapolitan
Government, took the fathers in his own dominions under his special protection,
forbade all change of rule in their houses, and even withdrew them from
obedience to the Neapolitan superiors, that is to St. Alphonsus, till an inquiry
could be held. A long process followed in the Court of Rome, and on 22 September
1780, a provisional Decree, which on 24 August 1781, was made absolute,
recognized the houses in the Papal States as alone constituting the Redemptorist
Congregation. Father Francis de Paula, one of the chief appellants, was
appointed their Superior General, "in place of those", so the brief ran, "who
being higher superiors of the said Congregation have with their followers
adopted a new system essentially different from the old, and have deserted the
Institute in which they were professed, and have thereby ceased to be members of
the Congregation." So the Saint was cut off from his own Order by the Pope who
was to declare him "Venerable". In this state of exclusion he lived for seven
years more and in it he died. It was only after his death, as he had prophesied,
that the Neapolitan Government at last recognized the original Rule, and that
the Redemptorist Congregation was reunited under one head (1793).
Alphonsus had still one final storm to meet, and then the end. About three years
before his death he went through a veritable "Night of the Soul". Fearful
temptations against every virtue crowded upon him, together with diabolical
apparitions and illusions, and terrible scruples and impulses to despair which
made life a hell. at last came peace, and on 1 August 1787, as the midday
Angelus was ringing, the Saint passed peacefully to his reward. He had nearly
completed his ninety-first year. He was declared "Venerable", 4 May,1796; was
beatified in 1816, and canonized in 1839. In 1871, he was declared a Doctor of
the Church. "Alphonsus was of middle height", says his first biographer, Tannoia;
"his head was rather large, his hair black, and beard well-grown." He had a
pleasant smile, and his conversation was very agreeable, yet he had great
dignity of manner. He was a born leader of men. His devotion to the Blessed
Sacrament and to Our Lady was extraordinary. He had a tender charity towards all
who were in trouble; he would go to any length to try to save a vocation; he
would expose himself to death to prevent sin. He had a love for the lower
animals, and wild creatures who fled from all else would come to him as to a
friend. Psychologically, Alphonsus may be classed among twice-born souls; that
is to say, there was a definitely marked break or conversion, in his life, in
which he turned, not from serious sin, for that he never committed, but from
comparative worldliness, to thorough self-sacrifice for God. Alphonsus's
temperament was very ardent. He was a man of strong passions, using the term in
the philosophic sense, and tremendous energy, but from childhood his passions
were under control. Yet, to take anger alone, though comparatively early in life
he seemed dead to insult or injury which affected himself, in cases of cruelty,
or of injustice to others, or of dishonor to God, he showed a prophet's
indignation even in old age. Ultimately, however, anything merely human in this
had disappeared. At the worst, it was only the scaffolding by which the temple
of perfection was raised. Indeed, apart from those who become saints by the
altogether special grace of martyrdom, it may be doubted if many men and women
of phlegmatic temperament have been canonized. The differentia of saints is not
faultlessness but driving-power, a driving-power exerted in generous
self-sacrifice and ardent love of God. The impulse to this passionate service of
God comes from Divine grace, but the soul must correspond (which is also a grace
of God), and the soul of strong will and strong passions corresponds best. The
difficulty about strong wills and strong passions is that they are hard to tame,
but when they are tamed they are the raw material of sanctity.
Not less remarkable than the intensity with which Alphonsus worked is the amount
of work he did. His perseverance was indomitable. He both made and kept a vow
not to lose a single moment of time. He was helped in this by his turn of mind
which was extremely practical. Though a good dogmatic theologian -- a fact which
has not been sufficiently recognized -- he was not a metaphysician like the
great scholastics. He was a lawyer, not only during his years at the Bar, but
throughout his whole life -- a lawyer, who to skilled advocacy and an enormous
knowledge of practical detail added a wide and luminous hold of underlying
principles. It was this which made him the prince of moral theologians, and
gained him, when canonization made it possible, the title of "Doctor of the
Church". This combination of practical common sense with extraordinary energy in
administrative work ought to make Alphonsus, if he were better known,
particularly attractive to the English-speaking nations, especially as he is so
modern a saint. But we must not push resemblances too far. If in some things
Alphonsus was an Anglo-Saxon, in others he was a Neapolitan of the Neapolitans,
though always a saint. He often writes as a Neapolitan to Neapolitans. Were the
vehement things in his letters and writings, especially in the matter of rebuke
or complaint, to appraised as if uttered by an Anglo-Saxon in cold blood, we
might be surprised and even shocked. Neapolitan students, in an animated but
amicable discussion, seem to foreign eyes to be taking part in a violent
quarrel. St. Alphonsus appeared a miracle of calm to Tannoia. Could he have been
what an Anglo-Saxon would consider a miracle of calm, he would have seemed to
his companions absolutely inhuman. The saints are not inhuman but real men of
flesh and blood, however much some hagiographers may ignore the fact.
While the continual intensity of reiterated acts of virtue which we have called
driving-power is what really creates sanctity, there is another indispensable
quality. The extreme difficulty of the lifelong work of fashioning a saint
consists precisely in this, that every act of virtue the saint performs goes to
strengthen his character, that is, his will. On the other hand, ever since the
Fall of Man, the will of man has been his greatest danger. It has a tendency at
every moment to deflect, and if it does deflect from the right path, the greater
the momentum the more terrible the final crash. Now the saint has a very great
momentum indeed, and a spoiled saint is often a great villain.
To prevent the ship going to pieces on the rocks, it has need of a very
responsive rudder, answering to the slightest pressure of Divine guidance. The
rudder is humility, which, in the intellect, is a realization of our own
unworthiness, and in the will, docility to right guidance. But how was Alphonsus
to grow in this so necessary virtue when he was in authority nearly all his
life? The answer is that God kept him humble by interior trials. From his
earliest years he had an anxious fear about committing sin which passed at times
into scruple.
He who ruled and directed others so wisely, had, where his own soul was
concerned, to depend on obedience like a little child. To supplement this, God
allowed him in the last years of his life to fall into disgrace with the pope,
and to find himself deprived of all external authority, trembling at times even
for his eternal salvation. St. Alphonsus does not offer as much directly to the
student of mystical theology as do some contemplative saints who have led more
retired lives. Unfortunately, he was not obliged by his confessor, in virtue of
holy obedience, as St. Teresa was, to write down his states of prayer; so we do
not know precisely what they were. The prayer he recommended to his
Congregation, of which we have beautiful examples in his ascetical works, is
affective; the use of short aspirations, petitions, and acts of love, rather
than discursive meditation with long reflection. His own prayer was perhaps for
the most part what some call "active", others "ordinary", contemplation. Of
extraordinary passive states, such as rapture, there are not many instances
recorded in his life, though there are some. At three different times in his
missions, while preaching, a ray of light from a picture of Our Lady darted
towards him, and he fell into an ecstasy before the people. In old age he was
more than once raised in the air when speaking of God.
His intercession healed the sick; he read the secrets of hearts, and foretold
the future. He fell into a clairvoyant trance at Arienzo on 21 September 1774,
and was present in spirit at the death-bed in Rome of Pope Clement XIV.
It was comparatively late in life that Alphonsus became a writer. If we except a
few poems published in 1733 (the Saint was born in 1696), his first work, a tiny
volume called "Visits to the Blessed Sacrament", only appeared in 1744 or 1745,
when he was nearly fifty years old. Three years later he published the first
sketch of his "Moral Theology" in a single quarto volume called "Annotations to
Busembaum", a celebrated Jesuit moral theologian. He spent the next few years in
recasting this work, and in 1753 appeared the first volume of the "Theologia
Moralis", the second volume, dedicated to Benedict XIV, following in 1755. Nine
editions of the "Moral Theology" appeared in the Saint's life-time, those of
1748, 1753-1755, 1757, 1760, 1763, 1767, 1773, 1779, and 1785, the "Annotations
to Busembaum" counting as the first. In the second edition the work received the
definite form it has since retained, though in later issues the Saint retracted
a number of opinions, corrected minor ones, and worked at the statement of his
theory of Equiprobabilism till at last he considered it complete. In addition,
he published many editions of compendiums of his larger work, such as the "Homo
Apostolicus", made in 1759. The "Moral Theology", after a historical
introduction by the Saint's friend, P. Zaccaria, S.J., which was omitted,
however, from the eighth and ninth editions, begins with a treatise "De
Conscientia", followed by one "De Legibus". These form the first book of the
work, while the second contains the treatises on Faith, Hope, and Charity. The
third book deals with the Ten Commandments, the fourth with the monastic and
clerical states, and the duties of judges, advocates, doctors, merchants, and
others. The fifth book has two treatises "De Actibus Humanis" and "De Peccatis";
the sixth is on the sacraments, the seventh and last on the censures of the
Church.
St. Alphonsus as a moral theologian occupies the golden mean between the schools
tending either to laxity or to rigour which divided the theological world of his
time. When he was preparing for the priesthood in Naples, his masters were of
the rigid school, for though the center of Jansenistic disturbance was in
northern Europe, no shore was so remote as not to feel the ripple of its waves.
When the Saint began to hear confessions, however, he soon saw the harm done by
rigorism, and for the rest of his life he inclined more to the mild school of
the Jesuit theologians, whom he calls "the masters of morals". St. Alphonsus,
however, did not in all things follow their teaching, especially on one point
much debated in the schools; namely, whether we may in practice follow an
opinion which denies a moral obligation, when the opinion which affirms a moral
obligation seems to us to be altogether more probable. This is the great
question of "Probabilism". St. Alphonsus, after publishing anonymously (in 1749
and 1755) two treatises advocating the right to follow the less probable
opinion, in the end decided against that lawfulness, and in case of doubt only
allowed freedom from obligation where the opinions for and against the law were
equal or nearly equal. He called his system Equiprobabilism. It is true that
theologians even of the broadest school are agreed that, when an opinion in
favor of the law is so much more probable as to amount practically to moral
certainty, the less probable opinion cannot be followed, and some have supposed
that St. Alphonsus meant no more than this by his terminology. According to this
view he chose a different formula from the Jesuit writers, partly because he
thought his own terms more exact, and, partly to save his teaching and his
congregation as far as possible from the State persecution which after 1764 had
already fallen so heavily on the Society of Jesus, and in 1773 was formally to
suppress it. It is a matter for friendly controversy, but it seems there was a
real difference, though not as great in practice as is supposed, between the
Saint's later teaching and that current in the Society. Alphonsus was a lawyer,
and as a lawyer he attached much importance to the weight of evidence. In a
civil action a serious preponderance of evidence gives one side the case. If
civil courts could not decide against a defendant on greater probability, but
had to wait, as a criminal court must wait, for moral certainty, many actions
would never be decided at all. St. Alphonsus likened the conflict between law
and liberty to a civil action in which the law has the onus probandi, although
greater probabilities give it a verdict. Pure probabilism likens it to a
criminal trial, in which the jury must find in favor of liberty (the prisoner at
the bar) if any single reasonable doubt whatever remain in its favor.
Furthermore, St. Alphonsus was a great theologian, and so attached much weight
to intrinsic probability. He was not afraid of making up his mind. "I follow my
conscience", he wrote in 1764, "and when reason persuades me I make little
account of moralists." To follow an opinion in favor of liberty without weighing
it, merely because it is held by someone else, would have seemed to Alphonsus an
abdication of the judicial office with which as a confessor he was invested.
Still it must in fairness be admitted that all priests are not great theologians
able to estimate intrinsic probability at its true worth, and the Church herself
might be held to have conceded something to pure probabilism by the
unprecedented honors she paid to the Saint in her Decree of 22 July 1831, which
allows confessors to follow any of St. Alphonsus's own opinions without weighing
the reasons on which they were based.
Besides his Moral Theology, the Saint wrote a large number of dogmatic and
ascetical works nearly all in the vernacular. The "Glories of Mary", "The Selva",
"The True Spouse of Christ", "The Great Means of Prayer", "The Way of
Salvation", "Opera Dogmatica, or History of the Council of Trent", and "Sermons
for all the Sundays in the Year", are the best known. He was also a poet and
musician. His hymns are justly celebrated in Italy. Quite recently, a duet
composed by him, between the Soul and God, was found in the British Museum
bearing the date 1760 and containing a correction in his own handwriting.
Finally, St. Alphonsus was a wonderful letter-writer, and the mere salvage of
his correspondence amounts to 1451 letters, filling 3 large volumes. It is not
necessary to notice certain non-Catholic attacks on Alphonsus as a patron of
lying. St. Alphonsus was so scrupulous about truth that when, in 1776, the
regalist, Mgr. Filingeri, was made Archbishop of Naples, the Saint would not
write to congratulate the new primate, even at the risk of making another
powerful enemy for his persecuted Congregation, because he thought he could not
honestly say he "was glad to hear of the appointment." It will be remembered
that even as a young man his chief distress at his breakdown in court was the
fear that his mistake might be ascribed to deceit. The question as to what does
or does not constitute a lie is not an easy one, but it is a subject in itself.
Alphonsus said nothing in his "Moral Theology" which is not the common teaching
of Catholic theologians.
Very few remarks upon his own times occur in the Saint's letters. The eighteenth
century was one series of great wars; that of the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian
Succession; the Seven Years' War, and the War of American Independence, ending
with the still more gigantic struggles in Europe, which arose out of the events
of 1789. Except in '45, in all of these, down to the first shot fired at
Lexington, the English-speaking world was on one side and the Bourbon States,
including Naples, on the other. But to all this secular history about the only
reference in the Saint's correspondence which has come down to us is a sentence
in a letter of April 1744, which speaks of the passage of the Spanish troops who
had come to defend Naples against the Austrians. He was more concerned with the
spiritual conflict which was going on at the same time. The days were indeed
evil. Infidelity and impiety were gaining ground; Voltaire and Rousseau were the
idols of society; and the ancien régime, by undermining religion, its one
support, was tottering to its fall. Alphonsus was a devoted friend of the
Society of Jesus and its long persecution by the Bourbon Courts, ending in its
suppression in 1773, filled him with grief. He died on the very eve of the great
Revolution which was to sweep the persecutors away, having seen in vision the
woes which the French invasion of 1798 was to bring on Naples.
An interesting series of portraits might be painted of those who play a part in
the Saint's history: Charles III and his minister Tanucci; Charle's son
Ferdinand, and Ferdinand's strange and unhappy Queen, Maria Carolina, daughter
of Maria Teresa and sister of Marie Antoinette; Cardinals Spinelli, Sersale, and
Orsini; Popes Benedict XIV, Clement XIII, Clement XIV, and Pius VI, to each of
whom Alphonsus dedicated a volume of his works. Even the baleful shadow of
Voltaire falls across the Saint's life, for Alphonsus wrote to congratulate him
on a conversion, which alas, never took place! Again, we have a friendship of
thirty years with the great Venetian publishing house of Remondini, whose
letters from the Saint, carefully preserved as became business men, fill a
quarto volume. Other personal friends of Alphonsus were the Jesuit Fathers de
Matteis, Zaccaria, and Nonnotte.
A respected opponent was the redoubtable Dominican controversialist, P.
Vincenzo Patuzzi, while to make up for hard blows we have another Dominican, P.
Caputo, President of Alphonsus's seminary and a devoted helper in his work of
reform. To come to saints, the great Jesuit missionary St. Francis di Geronimo
took the little Alphonsus in his arms, blessed him, and prophesied that he would
do great work for God; while a Franciscan, St. John Joseph of the Cross, was
well known to Alphonsus in later life. Both of them were canonized on the same
day as the Holy Doctor, 26 May, 1839. St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775) and St.
Alphonsus, who were altogether contemporaries, seem never to have met on earth,
though the founder of the Passionists was a great friend of Alphonsus's uncle,
Mgr. Cavalieri, himself a great servant of God. Other saints and servants of God
were those of Alphonsus's own household, the lay brother, St. Gerard Majella,
who died in 1755, and Januarius Sarnelli, Cfsar Sportelli, Dominic Blasucci, and
Maria Celeste, all of whom have been declared "Venerable" by the Church.
Blessed Clement Hofbauer joined the Redemptorist congregation in the aged
Saint's lifetime, though Alphonsus never saw in the flesh the man whom he knew
would be the second founder of his Order. Except for the chances of European
war, England and Naples were then in different worlds, but Alphonsus may have
seen at the side of Don Carlos when he conquered Naples in 1734, an English boy
of fourteen who had already shown great gallantry under fire and was to play a
romantic part in history, Prince Charles Edward Stuart. But one may easily
overcrowd a narrow canvas and it is better in so slight a sketch to leave the
central figure in solitary relief. If any reader of this article will go to
original sources and study the Saint's life at greater length, he will not find
his labor thrown away.