Monterisi, Nicola

MONTERISI, NICOLA. - Archbishop, b. at Barletta on 21 May 1867, d. at Salerno on 30 March 1944. Having earned degrees in theology, law and literature, he 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, with the members of the Leone XIII circle, which he had formed, he engaged in an open struggle against anticlericalism in the fortnightly paper Il buon senso, which he directed until his appointment as bishop of Monopoli (1913). In 1920 he became archbishop of Chieti, in 1929 archbishop of Salerno.

He spent his long episcopate in a growing fervor of works that renewed the face of the three dioceses successively entrusted to him. A man of adamantine character, sustained by an unshakable faith, he faced, in 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, gathered in large part by Msgr. A. Balducci: Trent'anni di episcopato. Moniti e istruzioni (Isola del Liri 1950).

Antonio Piolanti