MONTERISI, NICOLA. - Archbishop, b. at Barletta
MONTERELAROS, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the extreme northern part of the State of Minas Gerais in Brazil. It covers an area of 129,328 km², with a population of 401,000, of whom about 400,000 are Catholics. It has 26 parishes served by 20 diocesan priests and 17 religious priests. It was erected on 21 May 1867.
MONTERISI, NICOLA. - Born at Barletta on 21 May 1867, died at Salerno on 30 March 1944. He earned degrees in theology, law, and letters, and taught dogmatic theology at the Seminary of Bari (1897) and the following year at the diocesan seminary, which he left in 1908 upon his appointment as canon theologian and parish priest of S. Sepolcro in Barletta.
A combative spirit, together with the members of the Leone XIII Circle, which he had formed, he waged an open struggle against anticlericalism in the fortnightly Il buon senso, which he edited until his appointment as bishop of Monopoli (1913). In 1920 he became archbishop of Chieti, and in 1929 archbishop of Salerno.
He devoted his long episcopate to a growing fervor of works that renewed the face of the three dioceses successively entrusted to him. A man of adamantine character, sustained by unwavering faith, he faced, in the anxious hours of Italy’s history, grave situations, defending with apostolic courage the rights of the Church, especially during the last war. He left many pastoral writings, mostly collected by Msgr. A. Balducci: Trent'anni di episcopato. Moniti e istruzioni (Isola del Liri 1950).