Under the Patronage of St. Alphonsus Liguori

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696–1787) — founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, Bishop of Sant’Agata dei Goti, canonized in 1839 — was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pius IX in 1871, and named the heavenly patron of confessors and of moral theologians by Pius XII in 1950. This library is placed under his patronage because the Church has set his moral doctrine apart from that of every other author.

His authority

No moral theologian’s writings have been approved by the Church as his have been. After a formal revision of all his works, the Sacred Congregation of Rites decreed on May 18, 1803 — a decree confirmed by Pius VII — that nothing in them was found worthy of censure. When his opinions were afterward attacked as too lax, the Sacred Penitentiary answered (July 5, 1831) that a professor of sacred theology may safely follow and profess the opinions of St. Alphonsus, and that a confessor who follows them in the tribunal of Penance is not to be disturbed. Pope after pope — Benedict XIV, Clement XIII, Pius VII, Leo XII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII — commended his moral doctrine. Konings, whose compendium of the saint’s Theologia Moralis is in this library, gathers every testimony in one place:

• Principal Testimonies and Judgments of the Holy See concerning the Moral Doctrine of St. Alphonsus — the papal approbations in full, from Benedict XIV to Leo XIII.

The safety of his positions

Because of these judgments, the manuals hold that the opinions of St. Alphonsus may be followed safely in practice. Konings weighs the approbations one by one and says exactly what they establish. They do not make each of the saint’s opinions intrinsically probable — the Church has not given his moral doctrine the “special” approbation she gave to St. Augustine’s writings on grace. But they give every one of his opinions an extrinsic probability “as great as is that of the Doctors of the Church”, and “a presumption, and indeed a most vehement one, of intrinsic probability”; so that no opinion of the saint must be abandoned “unless its improbability is evidently established”. Nor is his authority exclusive: the Sacred Penitentiary itself added that those who follow other approved authors are not to be reprehended. Konings concludes “that anyone may licitly and more safely follow the opinions of St. Alphonsus” — unless a papal decree or declaration of the Roman Congregations, a legitimate custom, a synodal statute, a just civil law, the certain progress of the sciences, or a changed condition of commerce stands against a particular opinion, or one remains persuaded in conscience that it is false — and he sets out the whole case:

• On the Excellence and Authority of the Moral Doctrine of St. Alphonsus — the kinds of approbation the Church can give, and which belong to his doctrine.
• Key of the Moral Works of St. Alphonsus — rules for discerning the saint’s own, settled sentences.

For the treatment of this subject across the whole library, see the topic page The Authority of St. Alphonsus.