Cocle, Celestino

COCLE, CELESTINO. - Archbishop, b. at S. Giovanni Rotondo (Foggia) on 23 Nov. 1783 and d. at Naples on 2 March 1857; he was the fifth superior general of the Redemptorist Missionaries, among whom he entered on 21 Sept. 1799. He was the first to give St. Alphonsus's theological doctrine a systematic arrangement in an Epitome, which remained unpublished, like his other writings, among them the Diary of his generalate (1824-31). The Neapolitan college of theologians, contrary to custom, elected him perpetual dean, and the Herculaneum Academy of Archaeology and the Gioenia Academy of Natural Sciences made him an honorary member. Similar honors were paid him also by the archaeological academy of Athens.

Gregory XVI in 1831 appointed him titular archbishop of Patras. C. is better known as confessor of Ferdinand II, king of the Two Sicilies. While L. Settembrini in the Ricordanze presents him as an opponent of Italian unity, full of cunning impudence and a new Torquemada, others, in the opposite sense, consider him a "carbonaro" traitor to the Bourbons. In truth C. knew how to use his influence at court, promoting the interests of religion and protecting public morality to the annoyance of the freethinkers, who in 1848 succeeded in confining him to Malta, whence, having returned the following year, he lived as a modest religious, munificent toward all. On 8 Oct. 1849 he accompanied the exiled pontiff Pius IX to Pagani with some members of the royal family, having them admire there the rich lipsanotheca, in which, with the work of Fr. Placido Baccher, he had reassembled the bones of St. Alphonsus. He is buried in the Redemptorist church of S. Antonio in Tarsia, where his nephew erected a marble memorial to him.

Oreste Gregorio