ALPHONSUS LIGUORI

REDEMPTORISTS

As the king of Naples’ hunting-party tramped through the woods near Iliceto, they spied a large mansion screened behind some trees. The king inquired curiously who owned this fine "castle." One of the king’s party reported that the house belonged to Alphonsus Liguori and his missionaries. Another added that these priests were rumored to be the recent inheritors of 60,000 ducats, an immense sum.

The king, a violent foe of religion, was surprised and angered that priests should be so wealthy and immediately ordered an investigation. The supposed wealth of the newly-founded Congregation of the Redeemer was fictitious¾ the house was so poor that it had been unable to sustain a novitiate. When the king realized the true situation of the Redemptorists, he canceled the investigation. Nevertheless, the incident worried Alphonsus.

Two years previously, the congregation had been approved by Pope Benedict XIV and had since enjoyed spectacular success in its missionary work among the people of Italy. However, the civil government had the power to bring all of the young congregation’s activities to an end. If the Redemptorists were expelled from the kingdom, as the Jesuits had already been, it would mean the death of this new work of God.

The next year, Alphonsus obtained a royal decree sanctioning the houses already established at Iliceto, Pagani, Ciorani, and Caposele, but this decree was far from satisfactory in its details. Since these were the first and only houses of the congregation, Alphonsus seized every opportunity to attempt to win a more favorable approval. If the Redemptorists were to survive, they would have to obtain a more stable legal status.

However, complications soon arose. Two men, Canon Francis Maffei and Baron Nicholas Sarnelli, bore personal grievances against the congregation. Maffei, a local official of some importance, had been attempting for some time to control officials of both the local secular and ecclesiastical powers but had encountered opposition from the bishop. When Redemptorist priests, including Alphonsus himself, were asked to testify against him in court, the truthful evidence was so damaging that Maffei was banished from Iliceto. He never forgave the Redemptorists.

Sarnelli, meanwhile, wanted to repossess a vineyard that his brother, now dead, had once given to the congregation.

The two men launched their attacks. They accused the Redemptorists of violating the royal decree of 1752 and demanded that the congregation be suppressed.

The official prosecutor reported to the king on the charges of Maffei and Sarnelli. The report was worse than expected. Dwelling only briefly on the claims of Sarnelli, it concluded that the very existence of the Redemptorists in Naples was illegal.

The prosecutor charged that the Redemptorists were in fact the suppressed Society of Jesus in disguise. The prosecutor, having carefully studied the rule of the Redemptorists, announced that he found it to be practically identical to that of the Jesuits, with the same central organization and the same thinly veiled ambition of infiltrating every position of power. Above all, their founder embraced the same system of morality as the Jesuits, a morality which the prosecutor termed "lax." There could be no doubt that Alphonsus was a Jesuit under a different name.

For this reason, concluded the prosecutor, the Redemptorists should be suppressed, their property sold, and the income divided among the members already in holy orders, while the novices were to be sent home.

Alphonsus had to call upon all his legal training and experience to avert the immediate danger. He was by now eighty-one years old, in poor health, partly blind, deaf, lame, and asthmatic. One by one he took up the accusations. When the day of the trial arrived, Maffei and Sarnelli consulted with the seven lawyers they had hired and decided not to risk their case. Instead, they asked for another adjournment, and again the case rested.

The next two years seemed to mark a turning point in the status of the congregation. It acquired friends at court, its missionary work continued, and its enemies remained quiet.

Negotiations at Naples

Alphonsus believed that the time was now ripe for complete royal approbation of his institute. Alphonsus wanted the king to approve the same rule Pope Benedict XIV had approved. Such an approval would render the congregation immune to civil attack and would ensure the final security of the congregation.

Alphonsus sought the opinion of Msgr Testa, the minister of religious affairs, who replied that the circumstances indeed looked favorable. As proof of his good will, Msgr Testa told Alphonsus that he would see to it that the matter received immediate attention from the king.

Alphonsus appointed Fr Majone, his long-time representative at the Neapolitan court, to take charge of the negotiations. Alphonsus instructed Fr Majone to prepare the manuscript of the rule asked for by Msgr Testa, and he gave strict orders not to compromise any essential point. But when Fr Majone began to confer with Msgr Testa, both saw at once that they would have to go farther in changing the rule than their commission empowered them.

Since Msgr Testa held office by favor of the king, he owed more loyalty to the king than to Alphonsus. He immediately began to make changes to customize the rule to suit the king’s pleasure. He eliminated the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the oath of perseverance in the congregation, the authority of the rector major, and the holding of chapters.

Fr Majone, wearied by long years of suffering as the congregation’s agent in the litigation and trouble at Naples, allowed Msgr Testa to make the amendments. He believed the Redemptorists could accept the king’s approval of a modified rule but continue living as they had lived before.

When rumors began to surface that radical changes were being made to the rule, various members of the congregation began to write letters of protest to Alphonsus.

Alphonsus responded to one of the letters, "I hear that some are thinking that I wish to make a new rule different from the old. How could anyone suspect this, since I have always been the most jealous of the rule? I have always governed the congregation according to the rule, and I will strive till my last breath to ensure that it shall not be changed even in its least part."

But to reassure himself, Alphonsus questioned Majone directly whether there would be any changes in the rule affecting the common life. Majone had gone too far to now retrace his steps, so he gave an evasive answer that relieved Alphonsus.

Meanwhile, after a month of negotiation at Naples, and as nervous tension built throughout the houses of the congregation, the amended rule was finally completed.

Majone now found himself faced with a difficult task. To present the amended rule to the king, he needed Alphonsus’s signature. But Majone knew Alphonsus would never sign the manuscript if he was aware that it no longer included neither the three religious vows nor the internal structures that would guarantee the congregation’s existence as a united whole. Nevertheless, he had to find a way to get his signature.

At this time, Alphonsus was practically blind and suffered severely from headaches. When Fr Majone brought him the document, Alphonsus took it and began to read.

The reading, however, with its marginal notes and interlinear corrections, tired Alphonsus and strained his weak eyes. He read far enough to realize that the first chapter had been hardly changed at all, but he had not yet reached the vital changes of the new version of the rule. He handed the document to his vicar general to read it for him. The vicar general had already been won over to Fr Majone’s way of thinking and was convinced of the need to move forward. He read it hurriedly and, with a few general words of approval, handed it back to Alphonsus to sign.

Fr Majone returned to Naples with the signed document. When it came up for discussion at court, Msgr Testa had done his work well, and approval was granted almost immediately.

It was an empty victory for Fr Majone. He dreaded the job of announcing the approval, or even showing the document to Alphonsus and the congregation, so he waited more than a month before sending it with another priest who was going to see Alphonsus.

Alphonsus was not well, so the fathers thought it unwise to trouble him when the letter arrived. Nevertheless, Alphonsus spoke enthusiastically of the anticipated approval and announced his plans for a general renewal of vows on Good Friday.

After dinner, the community gathered around the vicar general. Unable to restrain their curiosity any longer, they insisted that the vicar general open the letter in the name of Alphonsus. He broke the seal, and in a few moments all knew that the Redemptorists had been destroyed.

The next morning the fathers who had been present went to Alphonsus and, almost before revealing the contents of the letter, demanded an explanation. Alphonsus asked for a copy of the rule and burst into uncontrollable weeping when he read the revisions.

"I ought to be dragged through the streets," he said. "It was my duty as rector major to read the manuscript myself." Then turning to the vicar general he said, "Don Andrew Villani, I never thought I could be deceived in such a way by you. I have been betrayed."

Msgr Testa, on the other hand, was quite pleased with his work and sent an order that the revised rule be put into effect by March 1. "You," he wrote dictatorially to Alphonsus, "as founder and Superior General of the institute, will be good enough to tell all the subjects in my name that these statutes are to remain perpetually in force; no modifications will be permitted. The members of the institute, present or future, whether priest, students, or lay brothers, must submit themselves, each and every one of them, without opposition or contradiction. To achieve this you will communicate this mandate to all the local superiors, enjoining them to read it to their communities at the accustomed place and time of meeting. They should make a memorandum of the fact in their archives for future reference and notify me that they have executed this order."

But more was to come.

Crisis

Pope Pius VI, already indignant over the interference of secular authorities in religious matters, was led to believe that Alphonsus, weakened by old age, had consented to all the changes in the rule. To the Holy Father, it seemed as though Alphonsus had completely betrayed his principles in allowing a new rule in Naples, thus dividing the authority governing the congregation. In effect, this created a schism between the houses in Naples and those in the Papal States.

As Alphonsus was preparing to defend his case in Rome, the Sarnelli lawsuit resurfaced, reawakening the fears of complete suppression by the king. With Alphonsus distracted by the lawsuit, the pope proceeded to sign the decree excluding Alphonsus from his own congregation.

Those closest to Alphonsus could not bear to tell him what had happened. They waited until the next morning when Alphonsus was preparing for mass.

He broke into tears when he heard the pope’s decree and then began to blame himself for the ruin of the congregation. After a while, he became calm: "I want only what God wants. His grace is sufficient for me. The pope will have it so. God be praised." Then he continued his preparation for mass.

During the day, however, all the bitterness of the catastrophe descended upon him. He had constant recourse to prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom he had always had a special devotion, but it was only after several hours that the storm subsided and he was able to speak calmly of what had happened. "The pope has thought it to be good. God be praised. The will of the pope is the will of God."

Alphonsus was almost eighty-six years old when he was cut off from the congregation. It was the end of his external activities. Despite the interior trials and afflictions of these years, his firm belief in Divine Providence never wavered: he prophesied that after his death the congregation would spread its wings far and wide. He prepared for death with the same spirit of humility and submission to God’s will.

Years later, when news of his imminent death spread, large numbers of every rank and station gathered at the monastery to see for the last time the man whom all revered as a saint. He died on August 1, 1787.

At Rome it was decided to introduce the cause of his canonization, but the objection was immediately raised that Alphonsus had abandoned a rule approved by the Church. Pius VI, remembering the controversy all too well, appointed three cardinals to examine the whole question and gave them the mandate to settle the question definitively.

After an investigation, the cardinals unanimously decided that the affair of the rule was in no way a blot on his conscience. Rather, they judged, it was something which God had permitted in order to purify him through the great suffering it caused.

The same pope who had expelled him from his congregation was the pope who beatified him. Alphonsus Liguori was eventually canonized on May 26, 1839. By the time of his canonization his congregation had opened houses in various countries in Europe and America. The first foundation in Portugal was made in 1826, in Belgium in 1831, in America in 1832, and in Holland in 1836. When Alphonsus was hailed as a saint, his congregation had thirty-one houses, nine of them beyond Italy. His congregation had indeed spread its wings far and wide.

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