Isernia and Venafro, Diocese of

ISERNIA AND VENAFRO, Diocese of. - United dioceses, suffragan of Capua, in Campania. Over an area of 714 sq km there is a population of 53,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, with 41 parishes, 68 diocesan priests and 7 regulars, one seminary, 2 male religious communities and 5 female (1949).

The origins of I. are lost in legend. According to the opinion now most widely accepted, they would go back to the Oscans, as is documented by numerous inscriptions found and by the very name Aisernion, found on certain coins and which in the Oscan language means rock, and therefore a city built on rocks. It was a Roman colony with the right of coinage as early as 265 B.C.; it always remained faithful to Rome. It held a pre-eminence over all the Samnite cities, even during the Social Wars. The Christian origins of I. go back to the 5th century. The first bishop mentioned by Ughelli is a certain St. Benedict, not well identified, whose body is preserved beneath the high altar of the Cathedral. Other sporadic names then follow in the series of bishops down to 942; from then on the series becomes uninterrupted. In 1182 Pope Lucius III placed the diocese of I. under pontifical protection, uniting with it the neighboring one of V. In 1302, the two dioceses were again united by Adenolfo, archbishop of Capua, and entrusted to a certain bishop Gerard, whose consecration bull, bearing also the boundaries of the diocese, is preserved in the historical Archive of the Cathedral. Separated again, the two dioceses were definitively united in 1852. The city of I. was razed to the ground by various earthquakes, in 847, in 1349 and in 1456; to these are added the destructions and fires carried out during the wars that devastated the peninsula during the Middle Ages. The cathedral of I. has been rebuilt several times, including recently after the bombings of September 1943, under which about 4,000 people perished. I. is the birthplace of St. Celestine V, pope. The cathedral of I. is dedicated to St. Peter; that of V. to the Madonna of Loreto. See also VENAFRO.

Gennaro Auletta