COCLE, CELESTINO

COCLE, CELESTINO. — Archbishop, born at S. Giovanni Rotondo (Foggia) on 23 November 1783 and died in Naples on 2 March 1857, he was the fifth superior general of the Redemptorist Missionaries, among whom he entered on 21 September 1799. He was the first to give the theological doctrine of s. Alfonso a systematic presentation in an Épitome, which remained unpublished, as did several of his other writings, including the Diario of his generalate (1824–31). The Neapolitan college of theologians, contrary to custom, elected him perpetual dean; the Ercolanense Academy of Archaeology and the Gioenia Academy of Natural Sciences wished to have him as an honorary member. Similar honors were also bestowed upon him by the archaeological academy of Athens.

Gregory XVI appointed him titular archbishop of Patras in 1831. C. is better known as confessor to Ferdinand II, king of the Two Sicilies. Whereas L. Settembrini presents him in the Ricordanze as an opponent of Italian unity, saturated with crafty insolence and a new Torquemada, others, in the opposite sense, regard him as a « car-

«Carbonaro» traitor of the Bourbons. In truth, C. knew how to use his influence at court, promoting the interests of religion and safeguarding public morality, to the displeasure of the freethinkers, who in 1848 succeeded in confining him to Malta. Having returned the following year, he lived as a modest religious, generous toward all. On 8 Oct. 1849 he accompanied the exiled pontiff Pio IX to Pagani, together with some members of the royal family, showing him the rich reliquary, in which, with the help of d. Placido Baccher, he had reassembled the bones of s. Alfonso. He is buried in the Redemptorist church of S. Antonio a Tarsia, where his nephew erected a marble memorial to him.