TURCHI, ADEODATO. – Capuchin, orator, bishop. Born in Parma on 5 Aug. 1724, died there on 2 Sept. 1803. He entered the Capuchins at Carpi on 21 Aug. 1739.
Within his Order he held all the most honorific offices, from that of lector to that of provincial. From 1768 he was court preacher to the Duke of Parma; in 1778 tutor to the Royal Infants and confessor to the Royal Family; in 1788 bishop of Parma. He was accused at one time of having been a free-thinker and of favoring the jurisdictionalist policy of Du Tillot. Today, however, his orthodoxy and devotion to the Holy See have been fully recognized.
Besides the principal cities of Emilia, he was heard with applause at Arezzo, Pisa, Florence, Genoa, Rome, and Naples, where in 1767 he also preached before the court. Among the first to raise his voice against the errors of philosophism and French thought, the needs of the times directed him to apologetic preaching. His favorite themes were common sense and natural rectitude. All his works—Lenten sermons, homilies, court sermons, pastoral letters, funeral orations, panegyrics—display originality, force of argument, and frankness of speech; his masterpiece, however, is considered the funeral oration for Maria Theresa. Of his works (493 in all), besides numerous partial editions, the complete and fundamental edition published at Modena (10 vols., 1818–20; Venice, 20 vols., 1832–34) is to be cited, as all subsequent editions have drawn upon II.