Alphonsus Liguori

Education

Liguori learned to ride and fence but was never a good shot because of poor eyesight. Myopia and chronic asthma precluded a military career, so his father had him educated in the legal profession. He was taught by tutors before entering the University of Naples, where he graduated with a doctorate in civil and canon law at 16. He remarked later that he was so small at the time that he was almost buried in his doctor's gown and that all the spectators laughed. When he was 18, like many other nobles, he joined the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mercy, with whom he assisted in the care of the sick at the hospital for "incurables".

He became a successful lawyer. He was thinking of leaving the profession and wrote to someone, "My friend, our profession is too full of difficulties and dangers; we lead an unhappy life and run risk of dying an unhappy death." At 27, after losing an important case, the first he had lost in eight years of practising law, he made a firm resolution to leave the profession of law. Moreover, he subsequently reported hearing an "interior voice" saying: "Leave the world, and give yourself to me."

Calling to the Priesthood

In 1723, he decided to offer himself as a novice to the Oratory of St. Philip Neri with the intention of becoming a priest. His father opposed the plan, but after two months (and with his Oratorian confessor's permission), he and his father compromised: he would study for the priesthood, but not as an Oratorian, and would live at home. He was ordained on 21 December 1726, at the age of 30. He lived his first years as a priest with the homeless and the marginalised youth of Naples. He became very popular because of his plain and simple preaching. He said: "I have never preached a sermon which the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand". He founded the Evening Chapels, which were managed by the young people themselves. The chapels were centres of prayer and piety, preaching, community, social activities, and education. At the time of his death, there were 72, with over 10,000 active participants. His sermons were very effective at converting those who had been alienated from their faith.

Liguori suffered from scruples much of his adult life and felt guilty about the most minor issues relating to sin. Moreover, Liguori viewed scruples as a blessing at times and wrote: "Scruples are useful in the beginning of conversion... they cleanse the soul, and at the same time make it careful".

In 1729, Liguori left his family home and took up residence at the Chinese Institute in Naples. It was there that he began his missionary experience in the interior regions of the Kingdom of Naples, where he found people who were much poorer and more abandoned than any of the street children in Naples. In 1731, while he was ministering to earthquake victims in the town of Foggia, Alphonsus said he had a vision of the Virgin Mother in the appearance of a young girl of 13 or 14, wearing a white veil.

Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer

On 9 November 1732, he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, when Sister Maria Celeste Crostarosa told him that it had been revealed to her that he was the one that God had chosen to found the congregation. He founded the congregation with the charism of preaching popular missions in the city and the countryside. Its goal was to teach and preach in the slums of cities and other poor places. The congregation also strongly opposed the development of Jansenism, a theological movement that to Alphonsus seem to exhibit excessive moral rigorism: "the penitents should be treated as souls to be saved rather than as criminals to be punished". He is said never to have refused absolution to a penitent himself.

A gifted musician and composer, he wrote many popular hymns and taught them to the people in parish missions. In 1732, while he was staying at the Convent of the Consolation, one of his order's houses in the small city of Deliceto in the province of Foggia in Southeastern Italy, Liguori wrote the Italian carol "Tu scendi dalle stelle" ("From Starry Skies Descending") in the musical style of a pastorale. The version with Italian lyrics was based on his original song written in Neapolitan, which began Quanno nascette Ninno ("When the child was born"). As it was traditionally associated with the zampogna, or large-format Italian bagpipe, it became known as Canzone d'i zampognari, the "Carol of the Bagpipers".

Bishop of Sant' Agata de Goti and final years

Liguori was consecrated Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Goti in 1762. He tried to refuse the appointment by using his age and infirmities as arguments against his consecration. He wrote sermons, books, and articles to encourage devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He first addressed ecclesiastical abuses in the diocese, reformed the seminary and spiritually rehabilitated the clergy and faithful. He suspended those priests who celebrated Mass in less than 15 minutes and sold his carriage and episcopal ring to give the money to the poor.

By May 1775, Alphonsus was "deaf, blind, and laden with so many infirmities, that he has no longer even the appearance of a man", and his resignation was finally accepted by the recently crowned Pope Pius VI. He continued to live with the Redemptorist community in Pagani, Italy, where he died on 1 August 1787. His remains are now in display in the parochial church in Pagani.

Veneration and legacy

He was beatified on 15 September 1816 by Pope Pius VII and canonised on 26 May 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI.

In 1949, the Redemptorists founded the Alphonsian Academy for the advanced study of Catholic moral theology. He was named the patron of confessors and moral theologians on 26 April 1950 by Pope Pius XII, who subsequently wrote of him in the encyclical Haurietis aquas.

In bestowing the title of "Prince of Moral Theologians", the church also gave the "unprecedented honour 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." The church did not bestow this unique privilege lightly; it was due to his extraordinary combination of exceptional knowledge and understanding of church teachings combined with the great precision in which he wrote.