The bishop next door
The bishop next door
On 24 October 1767 a child was baptised in the Collegiate Church of Sant'Andrea at Arienzo and given the name Pasquale. In the palace immediately beside that church lived Alfonso Maria de' Liguori — bishop of the diocese, founder of the Redemptorists, and now a saint and Doctor of the Church.
The facts, and their limits
| What | Source |
|---|---|
| Arienzo belonged to the diocese of Sant'Agata de' Goti until 1855, when it passed to Acerra along with Cervino, San Felice a Cancello and Santa Maria a Vico. | Diocesan history; and the Arienzo marriage records themselves, which route every dispensation through the Episcopalis Curia Sanctae Agathae Gothorum. |
| Alfonso Maria de' Liguori was bishop of Sant'Agata de' Goti from 1762 to 1775, appointed by Clement XIII. | Standard biography. |
| The bishop kept a second residence at Arienzo, beside the collegiate church of Sant'Andrea, and Alfonso stayed there for some years because the climate was milder. He was criticised by the people of Sant'Agata for not residing at the Episcopio. The building is now the Museo Alfonsiano. | Diocesan and local histories. |
| His health broke down from 1767, and he resigned the see in 1775. | Standard biography. |
What this does and does not mean. It does not mean a saint baptised Pasquale Falco. The register names the priest, and it was not him — the entry is signed by the substitute D. Clemens Crisci, under the archpriest Antonio Romano. It means only this: the church in these pages was the bishop's own church during the years Alfonso lived at Arienzo, and the family in these pages were his parishioners. When the registers record a dispensation from the episcopal curia of Sant'Agata in those years, they are recording his curia.
Stated plainly because it would be easy, and wrong, to let it become a family legend that a saint christened an ancestor.
The church itself
Sant'Andrea Apostolo is documented at Arienzo from 1151. In 1585 its parish was given the care of all the inhabitants of the walled town and the land north to Rosciano. In 1722 it was raised to the dignity of a collegiate church, with twenty-two canons and eight mansionaries — which is why the registers style it, at full length, insignis archipresbyteralis collegiata ecclesia Sancti Andreae Apostoli Terrae Argenti.
That last phrase is the town's own Latin name: Terra Argenti, the land of silver.