Saint Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Alphonsus Maria de Liguori CSsR (27 September 1696 – 1 August 1787) was an Italian Catholic bishop and saint, as well as a spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philosopher, and theologian. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as the Redemptorists, in November 1732. In 1762 he was appointed Bishop of Sant'Agata de' Goti. A prolific writer, he published nine editions of his Moral Theology in his lifetime, in addition to other devotional and ascetic works and letters. Among his best known works are The Glories of Mary and The Way of the Cross, the latter still used in parishes during Lenten devotions. He is also associated with the manualist tradition of moral theology and seminary education, which was highly influential in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was canonised in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1871. One of the most widely read Catholic authors, he is the patron saint of confessors. He was born in Marianella, near Naples, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, on 27 September 1696. He was the eldest of seven children of Giuseppe Liguori, a naval officer and Captain of the Royal Galleys, and Anna Maria Caterina Cavalieri. Two days after he was born, he was baptised at the Church of Our Lady the Virgin as Alphonsus Mary Anthony John Cosmas Damian Michael Gaspard de' Liguori. The family was of noble lineage, but the branch to which Liguori belonged had become somewhat impoverished. 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.