S. E. Alfonso Capecelatro, S. Alfonso de Liguori (1896-1787), vol. I, «Vite dei Santi», Edizioni Effedieffe, Proceno VT, 2025, pp. 469.
Review by Father Vincenzo La Mendola C.Ss.R.
The enduring relevance of Saint Alphonsus is a fact. Even his “classic” biographies are making a comeback. And they are arousing the interest of today’s readers. This is demonstrated by a highly original initiative by Edizioni Effedieffe: the reprinting, entirely faithful to the original, of the renowned biography by the Oratorian Cardinal Alfonso Capecelatro (1824-1912), included in the series Vite dei Santi (Lives of the Saints). This work can rightly be considered one of the classics of Alphonsian bibliography. However, like everything that is hastily considered “dated,” it ran the risk of being eclipsed and, perhaps for the most part, remaining unknown.
Although he was Neapolitan by birth and French by adoption, the famous Oratorian writer met St. Alphonsus in Marseille, where he spent his youth. In that diocese, the cult of St. Alphonsus had been established by Eugène de Mazenod (1762-1861), founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and bishop of the diocese of the same name. The name given to him at baptism originated from his mother’s devotion to the Neapolitan saint, which she had learned not in her own city but from a French friend, as he himself recounts (cf. Avvertenza, XIV-XV).
The Archbishop of Capua (1880) was one of the most prominent figures in the cultural landscape of the 19th century. He had significant contacts with A. Manzoni, N. Tommaseo, G. Capponi, P. Zocchi, A. Fogazzaro, F. Sclopis, C. Guasti, A. Conti, and Bernardi. He also corresponded with non-Italian authors, including Monsignor Dupanloup, Montalembert, Cardinal Mercier, Gladstone, and Newman, who was the subject of an interesting monograph: Newman e la religione cattolica in Inghilterra, ovvero L’oratorio inglese (1886). These names and his bibliography are enough to give us an idea of Capecelatro’s cultural breadth.
He was one of the most prolific writers of his time. He published the biographies of two other distinguished Neapolitan figures: the Dominican friar Gregorio Rocco (1881) and Father Ludovico da Casoria (1893), whom he had known personally. Three other masterpieces of the hagiographic genre bear his signature: Storia di s. Caterina da Siena e del papato dei suoi tempi (Naples, 1856), Storia di s. Pier Damiani e del suo tempo (Florence, 1862) and, of course, a biography of St. Philip Neri (1887).
The biography of St. Alphonsus was written and published at the height of his writing career. It is a work of maturity. In the biographical genre, relating to the life of the holy bishop, it marks an important milestone. Other authors during the 19th century had published well-known biographies of St. Alphonsus to celebrate his beatification, canonization, and recognition as a “Doctor of the Church.” But Capecelatro’s work stands out from the previous ones for its aims and innovative style.
Published in 1893, the year of its author’s appointment as prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library, the work was noted by La Civiltà Cattolica, which devoted nine pages to it in its section La rivista della stampa (XXXXV, series XV, vol. X, fasc. 1051, March 26, 1894, 575-583), highlighting the novelty of the genre chosen by Capecelatro, who, in his introduction, vol. X, fasc. 1051, March 26, 1894, 575-583), highlighting the novelty of the genre chosen by Capecelatro, who, the reviewer noted, “has been able to show us in him a civil greatness, without loss, indeed to the greater glory of Christian and holy greatness and to the gentle cultivation of religious sentiment.”
The substantial review also highlighted the author’s ability to contextualize the story of St. Alphonsus appropriately within the events that affected the life of the Church in the 18th century, with all the challenges that came from Jansenism, Regalism, and Indifferentism, advocated by cultural currents opposed to Christianity. This was the aim that had motivated the biographer’s choice of approach: “to look at the lives of the saints, not only in their own light, but also in the light they reflect on the Church and civil society” (p. 12).
Furthermore, the astute reviewer highlighted one of the key issues raised by Capecelatro in his Introduction: “After saying that he did not understand why the name of De Liguori had not been placed alongside the names of the great Italians of the 18th century, when he too benefited his century with his heroic holiness, with his clarification and refinement of moral sciences, with the publication of almost a hundred works on very serious and socially useful topics, with his admirable apostolate and with the religious order he founded.” The observation sounded like an authoritative denunciation of the systematic exclusion of Catholic intellectuals from cultural life that characterized post-unification Italy, led by anti-clerical liberals.
In his Introduction, Capecelatro again pointedly emphasized this point: “I do not understand at all why Alfonso De Liguori should not, for example, stand alongside Vico, Muratori, and Filangieri, who in different ways were distinguished benefactors of humanity.”
The text, in keeping with the style of the time, is not without apologetic tones, as the review pointed out, referring to the introductory part: “Against unbelieving philosophy, De Liguori was an apostle of that holy piety which is itself in part a most noble philosophy and in part produces it. He opposed the errors, harshness, and pride of Jansenist morality with his profound studies of Catholic morality […] Alfonso’s political science was to make himself a true friend of the people, at a time when the most learned politicians of that age paid no attention to the people and promoted despotism.” St. Alphonsus is presented as one of the most effective remedies for the ills of the Church and society of his time, a sort of antidote to the theological and philosophical errors of the long European Enlightenment and also of the 19th century. Capecelatro shared the vision of Pius IX, who, in the Decree of March 23, 1871, in which he declared him Doctor of the Church, stated that St. Alphonsus “dispelled the darkness of error and conquered it with his learned works, and mainly with his Treatises on Moral Theology.”
The author also pointed out, with evident bitterness, that despite being born in Italy and in the city of Naples, St. Alphonsus is “little known (it pains me to say it) among the educated men of our century.”
He deliberately focused on one of the “least known” prerogatives of the saint’s life and work, which perhaps “better than any other determines the quality and nature of his entire life”: his love for the people. This emphasis was appropriately inserted into the “storm of the social question” debated in the last part of the Italian nineteenth century.
St. Alphonsus, in Capecelatro’s view, stands in providential continuity with three other great figures of the modern era: St. Philip Neri, from whom he learned “the gentleness of piety and the simplicity of life”; St. Francis de Sales, from whom he learned science, meekness, and zeal; and St. Vincent de Paul, who was his model in his love for the people and the poor: “By imitating these three saints, St. Alphonsus not only perfected himself, [but] also continued in the 18th century the beneficial work of charity and civilization that they had accomplished in the two previous centuries” (p. 11).
At the time of its publication, the work presented another novelty, as the biographer himself stated: “The good sons of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer have collected in three large volumes as many letters of our Saint as they have been able to find; and I, now that I am beginning to write, have the first of these volumes before me, and I am sure I will have the others” (p. 15). The letters of the Saint (published from 1887 to 1890) and Tannoia’s biography are the sources from which the author draws to outline his figure in a new way and highlight “his human side. […] The writer thus sees the whole man and knows the mysterious and ineffable harmonies of the natural and supernatural in the saint. The reader reads with profit because he sees that the saints were men like us; they struggled as we struggle; they had certain particular inclinations as we have” (p. 16).
The first volume of the work outlines the first part of Alfonso’s biography, divided into two books. The first, consisting of seven chapters, describes the Saint’s youth, formation, and vocation. The second, consisting of 11 chapters, narrates the events from the foundation of the Congregation to his episcopal appointment.
What attracts attention, however, is not so much the events of his life, described in a lively style and with a certain psychological insight into the character, for which the author draws entirely on Tannoia, but rather the study of certain key topics for understanding the physiognomy of St. Alphonsus, a subject dealt with mainly in Book II.
The following aspects of the holy bishop are examined: his theological, ascetic, and moral works and, above all, his missionary work in southern Italy (Chapter V). The twelfth chapter, for example, is entirely devoted to the theme of preaching, highlighting the style and content preferred by St. Alphonsus in his multifaceted pastoral activities in favor of the poor and abandoned.
In detailing the biography and spirituality of St. Alphonsus, Capecelatro delves into the intricate events surrounding the foundation, development, and approval of his Institute (Chapters I-II-III-IV-VI-VII-VIII). His interpretation of the suppression of the Society of Jesus (chapter X) is also interesting, as he places himself in the perspective of his subject. Extensive discussion is devoted to the title of Doctor of the Church and the saint’s contribution to the renewal of moral theology (chapter XI).
In summary, we can classify this biography not only as strictly biographical but also as historical, if we take into account the frequent and appropriate digressions included in the narrative.
More than a biography in the classical sense of the term, as it was conceived in the second half of the 19th century in Italy, that of St. Alphonsus is an in-depth and systematic study of the thought, spirituality, and contribution of the Founder of the Redemptorists to the formation of Italian civilization, culture, and identity. It reflects the political tendencies of its author, who was openly close to the new Kingdom of Italy and a moderate supporter of a reconciliation between State and Church in the painful Roman Question.
All that remains is to pick up this elegant volume and immerse yourself in an enriching read, capable of revealing new and, in some ways, previously unknown aspects of the multifaceted personality of the Neapolitan saint, filtered through the pen and heart of a dispassionate admirer and attentive scholar who reaffirmed his enduring relevance at a time when social transformations and changes in mentality threatened to sideline the contribution of Christian thinkers to the formation of modern civilization.
Fr. Vincenzo La Mendola, C.Ss.R.
Original: Italian
