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Saint Alphonsus Liguori (27 September 1696 – 1 August 1787) was an Italian Doctor of the Catholic Church, spiritual writer, and founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer or Redemptorists, an influential religious order.
Saint Alphonsus Liguori was born in Marianella, in the Kingdom of Naples. Liguori finished school and went to law school at age sixteen. Eleven years later, after having lost an important case, he decided to give up his career because of the corruption in the courts of Naples.
In 1723, he began his seminary studies. He was ordained a priest on 21 December 1726, at the age of 30. He lived his first years as a priest with the homeless and marginalized youth of Naples. He founded the "Evening Chapels". Run by the young people themselves, these chapels were centers of prayer, community, the Word of God, social activities and education. At the time of his death, there were 72 of these chapels with over 10,000 active participants.
On 9 November 1732 Alphonsus founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, also known as Redemptorists. This order's goal was to teach and preach in the slums of cities and other poor places. They also fought Jansenism which was a heresy that denied humans free will and didn't allow many Catholics to receive the Eucharist. He gave himself entirely to this new mission. A companion order of nuns was founded simultaneously by Sister Maria Celeste.
Alphonsus was consecrated bishop of the diocese of Sant'Agata dei Goti in 1762. He tried to refuse the appointment because he felt too old and too sick to properly care for the diocese. During this time he wrote sermons, books, and articles to encourage the devotion of the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1775 he was allowed to retire from his office and went to live in the Redemptorist community in Pagani, Italy where he died on 1 August 1787. He was canonized in 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI, proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1871 by Pope Pius IX, and Patron of Confessors and Moralists in 1950.
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Patronage: confessors, moralists, theologians, vocations
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