← Catholic Saints
Catholic Saints
St. Alphonsus Ligouri
00:27:20
Born to a noble Italian family and known as the “Prince of Moral Theologians”, St. Alphonsus Liguori was a great preacher, lawyer, bishop, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In this episode of Catholic Saints, Augustine Institute professors Dr. Sean Innerst and Dr. Ben Akers discuss this holy man, drawing wisdom from his life and works to aid Catholics today.
Loading summary
Transcript113 lines
- [00:04]
A
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith.
- [00:22]
B
Hello and welcome to Catholic Saints. Today we're going to be talking about a saint that Saint John Paul II called a master of wisdom, a father in faith, teacher of the Christian life, and a great friend of the people. Today we're going to be talking about Saint Alphonsus Liguori. My name is Dr. Ben Akers, and I work here at the Augusta Institute along with my colleague Dr. Sean Enris, a great professor in the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology. Thank you for joining me, Sean.
- [00:45]
A
Oh, you bet, Ben. It's great to be here.
- [00:47]
B
So Pope St. John Paul II, one of my favorite saints. I always love finding a saint. Talk about another saint. And the popes are great. They get canonized because they have usually writings or a nice audience on the saint. But this is high praise from Pope St. John Paul II, a master of wisdom, father in faith, teacher of the Christian life, and a great friend of the people.
- [01:07]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and in some ways, you can see they're kind of kindred spirits because Alphonsus was a moral theologian, and St. John Paul II was likewise, you know, an important voice in the church on moral theology. Cleaned up a few messes.
- [01:24]
B
No, that's right. With his very taught, His Splendor, the great encyclical on moral theology for our viewers. And you can always download this on podcasts. Maybe you're listening on podcasts. Can you give us some historical context to where San Alphonsus fits within the history of the Church?
- [01:39]
A
Well, yeah, you know, in. In broad terms, born 1696, died 91 years later. Right. So at a ripe old age.
- [01:49]
B
That is an old age for the.
- [01:51]
A
17Th century and very much worn down by the years at the end. But so he. He's coming at that critical period where the Enlightenment hasn't entirely kicked in yet, some of the effects that has on the life of the Church. But in a period in which there are a lot of moral controversies around the issues of Jansenism, a kind of rigorous approach to moral theology and pastoral practice, which he had to address, it actually began. It was condemned 40 years before he was born, in fact, but it was.
- [02:35]
B
Still in popular piety. Individualism.
- [02:36]
A
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And the thing is that the folks that championed Jansenism sort of kept nuancing their positions to sort of stay in the good graces of the Church, and so it sort of lingers beyond its pronouncement. Of death, you might say. Right, right. The rumors of its death were a little early, so he had to do a lot of cleanup work and is kind of uniquely situated in that point in the church's history where we were kind of aching for a beautiful moral summa. And that's really what he delivered to the Church and is considered to be kind of a touchstone in moral theology up to the present day. Even though there's been so much development and, you know, theology across the life of the church and across that discipline, in moral theology, he's still considered to be the standard, you know, that everyone has to refer to and engage in. Yeah.
- [03:37]
B
And engage with, because I think he's a patron saint of moral theologians.
- [03:40]
A
Yeah. He was actually proclaimed to be the prince of moral theologians. Yeah. Not long after his death, one of the popes declared him, I think it was 1831. Two be that point of reference to which any confessor can make reference without having to question his arguments. So basically verifying his conclusions from his great summa of moral theology. I'm not sure the Church has ever said anything like that. I mean, St. Thomas, of course, is dealt with with the same kind of.
- [04:18]
B
Reverence, sees the gold standard, platinum standard that moral theologians have to in modern moral theology discussions. Is that the case, you think? Do we see this lived out in the practice? Is it just certain circles in the church or seminaries?
- [04:35]
A
As you're well aware, in theology today, the sources are often ignored. Right. There's a lot of creative thinking in theology today.
- [04:50]
B
There was an air quote in the creative for those listening on podcast.
- [04:57]
A
And so sometimes the great touchstones and theological reflection are not touched.
- [05:04]
B
So that would be like the Gospels, the Scriptures. Right. Like the touchstones, these foundational pieces. The liturgy. Right, the liturgy, the lives of the saints, how that lived out the virtues of faith, hope and charity, and cardinal.
- [05:14]
A
Virtues, the loci of theology. And so Alphonsus Liguori, I mean, he's still honored in name, you know, the Alfonsianum in Rome.
- [05:27]
B
That's right.
- [05:28]
A
Is named after him. Only really founded in the 20th century, but, you know, indicating that his influence has lasted into that period. And once again, he's still a touchstone. If you're writing a survey of, you know, the history of the development of moral theology, you've got to. You got to reference him.
- [05:50]
B
One of the things that struck me when I was looking at his life was that he seemed to be brilliant. He came from a noble family, so he was like a prince, I guess, you know, kind of Evoking that image. Very well formed intellectually and gifted by, you know, in his late teenage years. He has a civil degree and a canon law degree.
- [06:08]
A
A doctorate.
- [06:09]
B
A doctorate, sorry, yes. Thank you. A doctorate.
- [06:11]
A
Double doctorate.
- [06:12]
B
And was an incredible lawyer. So hearing that and then he abandons it all to kind of like the world showed its face to him and he wants to turn his back on it. But that's interesting as someone who's so legally formed does not become legalistic in his moral theology.
- [06:27]
A
Yeah, there's a reason for that, and I think it's rooted in his own experience. So he was obviously very disciplined, as you've indicated, very bright, capable of understanding the full field and all the implications, you know, drawing from principles, applying those prudentially in the moral sphere. But he also suffered his whole life from scrupulosity.
- [06:54]
B
What would be scrupulosity for someone who's listening might not.
- [06:56]
A
Well, perhaps a simple and clinical way of describing it is a kind of neurotic fear of sin. So a hypersensitivity to sin. And, you know, we commonly treat it today as a kind of psychological malady. But, you know, many of the saints suffered from it. And Liguri himself said that it can be very beneficial actually as a kind of opening stage which heightens your sensitivity, awareness of sin, its dangers and that sort of thing. Apparently he struggled with it throughout his life. So that was, you know, the thorn in the flesh that he had to bear. But that made him apt to avoiding rigorism because he had to sort of fight against it in himself. And so that enabled him to be a great confessor, you know, always avoiding laxity but not going so far as rigorism. And so he's famous for, you know, representing the, you know, the. The very stable middle of moral evaluation.
- [08:08]
B
Do you think if someone struggled with scrupulosity today, they would benefit from his writings? They would, oh, absolutely, yeah.
- [08:13]
A
Yeah.
- [08:14]
B
Was it. Would there be something you'd recommend to.
- [08:16]
A
Well, the.
- [08:19]
B
What I've seen in his writing, because I know he's got the text, Glories of Mary, the oral theology text, but then I've also seen like nice excerpts kind of culled from his writings. Salvation.
- [08:30]
A
He wrote a huge number of books and, you know, his devotional books are very good and readable. He was a good preacher, very simple, down to earth. He wasn't high flown, he wasn't given to rhetorical heights, and that colored his whole ministry throughout his life. But he had little manuals for confessors and on going to confession I don't recall the titles exactly, but he's got a number of works, Perhaps, you know, 10 or so, you know, Marian Devotion, Life of Prayer, which are worth looking at and very accessible. You know, his Summa and Moral Theology is nine volumes long and really light reading. Yeah. So. And it deals with questions that, you know, we would consider hair splitting today.
- [09:28]
B
Sure. You know, but he really wanted to cover the whole.
- [09:31]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [09:31]
B
The whole Christian life and not leave something unturned. If it would come up into a confessional.
- [09:39]
A
Yes.
- [09:40]
B
That the moral. The confessor would be formed in such a way as to be able to give a response.
- [09:44]
A
Yeah, that work is. It doesn't really go beyond moral theology, but it's more than. It's moral theology, you know, broadly considered. So everything that might fit in the life of growth and grace is considered in the. In nine volumes.
- [10:03]
B
Yeah.
- [10:04]
A
All the sacraments and the graces that they convey and things like that. So it. Yeah, but. But once again, his popular works are. Are quite accessible and, you know, look in the Tan catalog.
- [10:16]
B
Look at the Tan catalog. Exactly. And I'd even say probably for most of our viewers and listeners, the. The work of Saint Alphonsus Liguori you're probably most familiar with is the Stations of the Cross.
- [10:24]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [10:26]
B
Very, very beautiful. And that most parishes have the little booklet of it that you do on the Fridays in Lent and take your kids there and then you find them, go to the fish fry afterwards. But one of those beautiful refrains he has in there is that let me never offend you, I always love you. I forget now, the phrase is escaping me. But it's this beautiful refrain that goes throughout the Station of the Cross of. Just like contemplate your savior. Remember your savior. He's doing this for you.
- [10:53]
A
Yeah. That's one of the characteristics of St. Alphonsus is this unction. Right. So hearing he's the prince of moral theologians, as you suggested, that might suggest a kind of legalist approach to the spiritual life. But he has a very tender devotion. You can see that in his Marian devotion, particularly. And a great love, as indicated in that quote that you gave at the beginning from JP2. Right. A deep love for the poor. He always sought to serve in those places, even though he came from the upper classes. He always sought to serve the poorest of the poor, as we would say, drawing from Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He was very much a figure like that, very tender hearted.
- [11:41]
B
One of the things when I was researching and looking at his life that I was struck by was that coming from nobility to go serve the poor. There's a quotation attributed to him where he said, I've never delivered a sermon where the, you know, the least educated, simplest washer woman. Yeah. Couldn't understand what I said. And because he loved the people so much, he wanted them to understand that he was. He had such a heart for missions that he joined a diocesan order to serve in a missionary capacity.
- [12:09]
A
Yeah, that's right.
- [12:10]
B
And then he even starts another order to go in to be that, you know, to teach the. The poorest of the poor.
- [12:16]
A
The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.
- [12:18]
B
Yes.
- [12:18]
A
Yeah. Commonly called the Redemptorists.
- [12:21]
B
And they're still with us today, right? The Redemptorists.
- [12:23]
A
Absolutely. Still in many countries, all over the world.
- [12:26]
B
Is that still their mission?
- [12:28]
A
Yeah, they still. They still do missions.
- [12:31]
B
Missions, okay.
- [12:32]
A
Yeah. And preach missions. And they're kind of famous for, you know, having the. The crucifix in the belt, you know, because he, Alphonsus, would. Would hold the crucifix aloft, you know, to remind people of the price of their redemption. And that's sort of the spirit of the group, but very much working among the poor. So. Missions. Yes. And they still do parish missions in all kinds of places. You can find them doing parish missions in the US but largely their inclination is to poorer places.
- [13:03]
B
One of the things. So the Redemptorists, I read somewhere that he. Even in the founding of the Redemptorists, there was. He just had suffering there. It seemed like suffering accompanied him in his life.
- [13:12]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [13:13]
B
It was like there was. There was a confusion about something, and like, they even broke up and they kicked him out or from being in hell.
- [13:19]
A
Yeah.
- [13:20]
B
And wanted to get into the political intrigue, but just seemed like there was suffering in his own.
- [13:23]
A
Well, yeah. From the beginning, you know, his. This isn't uncommon, especially in noble families. Right. They. They oppose the. The entry of their sons or daughters into religious life because they're losing everything. And. And I think he was the oldest. He was the eldest in his family. Even though they didn't have much to pass on, they had. They had fallen on hard times. So there's always resistance of that kind. I think he originally wanted to be an oratorian. Okay.
- [13:52]
B
For St. Philip Neri's.
- [13:53]
A
Yeah. And he took a lot of those elements from the Oratorians with him in leaving. And so his father opposed that. He didn't want him doing that. And so, you know, the idea is, well, he'll be a diocesan priest, but he has to leave. And yes, once again, he faces all kinds of trials, both physical and spiritual, you know, because once again, as we mentioned, suffering from scrupulosity. But as is commonly the case, you know, this happens with St. Francis of Assisi, you know, being displaced as the founder of his own order, St. John.
- [14:31]
B
Of the Cross Reform of the Carmelites.
- [14:34]
A
That's, that's pretty serious to be put in prison by your confreres. So, yeah, lots of suffering of that kind, but lots of physical maladies. As a matter of fact, when he was named a bishop, he tried to plead that he was physically incapable of doing it and was probably not lying.
- [14:57]
B
That's right, because that was important to him.
- [15:01]
A
Theologian, but, you know, stuck it out for 12 or 13 years as a bishop, but when he was finished, he was finished. So he resigned as a bishop and of course those kinds.
- [15:13]
B
Were you allowed to do that back then?
- [15:14]
A
Well, apparently so, yeah.
- [15:16]
B
Well, yeah, I'm sure he did all the.
- [15:18]
A
And he went back to live with the redemptorist, but one of his biographers said he was a shell of a man by the time he retired. Right. He still had another 12 years or so, about the same period he had spent in the episcopacy to live after. But there wasn't much left of him by the time the church was done with him as a bishop. So, yeah.
- [15:45]
B
What would you say, for those watching and listening, what's the connection between the moral life and the spiritual life? Because he was such a great. As you mentioned, he has this, this great treatise on moral theology, but it expands, it's bigger than that because I think that sometimes, I think the temptation for good, faithful Catholic Christians is to say, I live a moral life. I am not Hitler. I'm not as bad as that guy. And I think that that's good enough.
- [16:13]
A
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, the traditional assessment of the relationship between moral and spiritual in the church, and very much in the spirit of St. Alphonsus, is that the moral life is the foundation and preparation for the spiritual life. So it's ascetical and spiritual theology. Right. So you have to set certain moral foundations to make possible advance in the spiritual life. And without those, it represents a sine qua non. Right. Without which you don't get advance in the spiritual life. And growth in the spiritual life is largely moral growth. This is something we've kind of lost a bit because we tend to think of the spiritual life as holy, a kind of personal relationship with God, forgetting that God says specifically that he who Loves me, obeys my commandments, so that the relationship itself depends upon that demanding love that God has for us to draw us more into his likeness. Right. Through moral perfection. So there's a tight association which is never broken. Right. You can't neglect the moral life and grow on the spiritual life. And it works the other way around. Right. You'll end up failing in the moral life if you don't have a vital spiritual life, a life of prayer. So St. Alphonsus observes and evaluates the whole of this reality, this mystery in accord with the unity of those two dimensions. Right. Which can never really be broken.
- [17:59]
B
That's a beautiful answer. I know that you're a master teacher of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. So I looked up in the back of the Catechism where Saint Alphonso said, if he's quoted, not all the saints are quoted. And he does have one quotation, one quotation in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. So I wanted to ask you, because I read it and it's like, oh, this is a hard quote. So I'll put you in a tough spot.
- [18:20]
A
Okay, good.
- [18:20]
B
So this comes in the context of the fourth pillar of the Catechism on prayer. And it talks about the three enlightening facts of faith about prayer, that it's always possible to pray. Prayer is a vital necessity. And then the prayer and the Christian life are inseparable. And this is a quotation from Saint Alphonsus. So if someone had to look him up, I wanted you to give some commentary, some gloss on this. Those who pray are certainly saved. Those who do not pray are certainly damned. Yeah, it seems harsh words to talk about damnation and hell. You wouldn't expect. People don't always expect that in the Catechism.
- [18:56]
A
Yeah, that's right.
- [18:57]
B
The Church is teaching. It is in there for you as well to check. It is in there. But if you could give a gloss on that for us.
- [19:03]
A
Well, okay. That's a quote which is also credited to Saint Teresa of Avila. Yeah. And she was a tough cookie.
- [19:12]
B
Yeah. City steal the quote. He may well have moral. No, wait, wait, wait. What's happening? No, I love it when the saints kind of rhyme like that.
- [19:23]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And often these things, you know, we're not entirely sure of their provenance. But so just to indicate that's not only his sentiment. Right. It's shared.
- [19:36]
B
Thank you.
- [19:38]
A
And. And as I indicated in our pre broadcast conversation, he means what he says. You can't cut off your relationship, as we were just indicating. Right. We can't cut off our relationship with God, which is largely expressed through prayer, and retain our place in covenant with him. So if you're not praying, you're on your way to a fall, and you're not arming yourself to resist the temptations that will come your way. Without prayer, we fail. Which is only to say, without grace, we cannot be saved. Right. And so we need to be earnest about asking, seeking and knocking. As our Lord says, if we don't ask, seek and knock, we will not receive. And failing to receive, we will not be saved by the grace we would otherwise have received. So it's a simple categorical. And it's good when people state it that baldly because it makes it very clear if you don't retain a vital interior life, you will fail. There's a dreadful scene painted by Dom Chautard in his Soul of the Apostolate, where he talks about. Specifically, he's talking about priests, but it applies to everyone. But he talks about dissipation in the spiritual life. And when one begins to surrender certain prayers and you can almost see the, you know, the life of a man draining out through a toe or something like that. Like the toe's been torn off and all the sand is running out from the inside and. And that slow pattern of degradation, once you begin to stop praying, your moral commitments begin to slide. And it's a sad picture, right? But we all have that experience, too. When we fail to pray, things just don't go as well. The ultimate expression of that can be reprobation if we give up the life of prayer or the spiritual life altogether.
- [21:51]
B
The great hope, though, is that those who pray will be saved.
- [21:55]
A
Yes, that's right.
- [21:56]
B
The converse is that if we do pray, if we do seek our Lord's grace in our lives, and one of the great pious practices that, when I was reading about that, he encouraged the lay people, laity, and everybody in their spiritual life to do was to make frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament.
- [22:12]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [22:13]
B
And I think just living in this context when we're recording this, we're in the middle of a Eucharistic revival in the United States of America, and the bishops are encouraging us to focus our attention on the great gift the Eucharist is.
- [22:24]
A
Yeah, yeah. Obviously, you know, as a devout priest, a great champion of the Blessed Sacrament and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It's at the center of the missions preached by the Redemptorists and, you know, an important facet in. In his spiritual life, no doubt about it.
- [22:50]
B
Sounds like he was the. The meat and the potatoes, the Eucharist. And then when you sin, go and receive our Lord's mercy and confession.
- [22:57]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And don't forget the Blessed Mother.
- [23:00]
B
And the Blessed Mother.
- [23:01]
A
Yes, yeah.
- [23:02]
B
Because Mary was part of his name even, wasn't he?
- [23:04]
A
Yes, yes. And. And the redemptress have a particular devotion to Our lady of Perpetual Help. And. And the primary. It's a Byzantine icon, and the primary icon is in their church in Rome. And so it's a facet of the Redemptorist life and their particular way of approaching Marian devotion.
- [23:27]
B
Is that the image of where Jesus is running to Mary in his sandals, falling.
- [23:31]
A
Yeah, his sandal is. But also the implements of his passion are there as well. So Our lady of Perpetual Help helping our Lord and then also offering through that gaze outward to help us as well. One of the places where I lived for quite a while in the cathedral, this is Rapid City, South Dakota, There's a huge icon of Our lady of Perpetual Help. The cathedral is called Our lady of Perpetual Help up over the main altar, and it's quite moving. And I've spent a lot of time.
- [24:05]
B
In front of that image.
- [24:06]
A
In front of that image. Yeah.
- [24:07]
B
That's beautiful.
- [24:08]
A
Yeah.
- [24:09]
B
Sean, for what can someone today. What do you want to say about St. Alphonsus, or what do you want to tell someone, you know, listening or watching today about Saint Alphonsus, besides it being the saint day, that of which you were born?
- [24:21]
A
Yeah, that's right.
- [24:22]
B
So devotion.
- [24:23]
A
Yeah.
- [24:24]
B
What do you think would be helpful for, like, why is he relevant to us today?
- [24:27]
A
Well, he's a very important figure for our own day for exactly the reasons we've described. Right. He was the sort of person who was able, through great learning, but also a very deft appraisal of the difficulties of human life to provide moral answers to difficult questions and in the midst of controversy at that particular time in the history of the Church, and we're facing similar controversies in our own time. So I think it would be terrific for us to make greater use of his moral theology as a tried and true expression of, once again, how to avoid the extremes of laxity and rigorism, and especially in the confessional. He's a great teacher for confessors, but also he's a great pastoral guide for those who go to confession. And all of us need to do that more. Right. Especially in a year of eucharistic revival. One of the failures of Jansenism was that they discouraged frequent Holy Communions and Saint Alphonsus specifically encouraged people to go more often and gave them the confidence in God's mercy to do so. But also with that clear teaching about the importance of moral rectitude and growing closer to our Lord in His service and love for him and those he's given us to love so that we can be better receptacles of that great gift. So I think he's an apt saint for our time.
- [26:17]
B
Well, thank you for that exhortation. Thank you for joining me today in the conversation. Thank you as well. You can hear this conversation on form. You can also hear it on podcast wherever you find your podcast. And we have a whole series of Catholic Saints where we talk about the heroes and heroines that the Lord has given us in the Church that you are also called to be a saint. Thank you for joining us and God Bless.
- [26:37]
A
Thank you for being a dedicated listener to the Catholic Saints podcast. Your support truly uplifts us. For those seeking additional thought provoking content, go to formed.org It's a platform brimming with resources, including insightful videos that align seamlessly with our podcast's themes. If you're finding value in our podcast, please consider taking a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback serves as a cornerstone for our growth and outreach.