COCLE, CELESTINO. — Archbishop, b. at S. Giovanni Rotondo (Foggia) on 23 Nov. 1783, d. at Naples on 2 March 1857, was the fifth Superior General of the Redemptorist Missionaries, among whom he entered on 21 Sept. 1799. He was the first to systematise the theological doctrine of St ALPHONSUS in an *Epitome*, which remained unpublished, as did other of his writings, including the *Diary* of his generalship (1824–31). The Neapolitan college of theologians, contrary to custom, elected him perpetual dean; the Ercolanese Academy of Archaeology and the Gioenia Academy of Natural Sciences made him an honorary member. Similar honours were paid him by the Archaeological Academy of Athens.
Gregory XVI in 1831 appointed him titular Archbishop of Patrasso. C. is better known as confessor to Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies. While L. Settembrini in his *Ricordanze* depicts him as an opponent of Italian unity, full of cunning impudence and a new Torquemada, others in contrast regard him as a “loyal” traitor to the Bourbons. In truth, C. knew how to use his influence at court, promoting the interests of religion and safeguarding public morality to the annoyance of free-thinkers, who in 1848 succeeded in exiling him to Malta; thence he returned the following year and lived as a modest religious, generous to all. On 8 Oct. 1849 he accompanied the exiled Pope Pius IX to Pagani with several members of the royal family, there displaying the rich reliquary in which, with the work of Fr Placido Baccher, he had reassembled the bones of St ALPHONSUS. He was buried in the Redemptorist church of S. Antonio at Tarsia, where his nephew erected a marble memorial to him.
