Angelo of Acri

The masterwork of Angelo of Acri is itinerant preaching. From 1702 until his death in 1739, a period of about thirty-eight years of priestly life, he tirelessly crisscrossed Calabria and large regions of southern Italy to preach Lenten sermons, spiritual exercises, and popular missions. His contemporaries nicknamed him the Apostle of Calabria. According to sources, after beginnings marked by a baroque rhetoric deemed too scholarly, he adopted a simple and direct speech, accessible to the people, which made his sermons particularly popular and well-attended. He also devoted long hours to the confessional. Within his order, he held various offices: master of novices, guardian of several convents, and then provincial minister of the Capuchins of Calabria, a position he held from 1717; his style of government, marked by gentleness, earned him the nickname of the "angel of peace." Furthermore, he promoted the foundation of a Capuchin monastery in Acri. His life was thus divided between intense missionary activity and the service of his community.

The reputation for holiness of Angelo of Acri rests upon the austerity of his life, the exact observance of the Franciscan rule, simplicity, and a charity described as inexhaustible. His spirituality is strongly centered on the Passion of Christ, a recurring theme in his preaching. Hagiographic sources attribute to him an intense interior life, marked by ecstasies and spiritual struggles, as well as extraordinary gifts reported by tradition: prophecy, bilocation, and healings. These accounts, typical of the devotional literature of the period, belong to hagiographic testimony and must be received with the customary caution. What emerges consistently in the sources is the coherence between his preaching and his personal life: he preached conversion and divine mercy while leading an impoverished existence himself, entirely given over to the evangelization of the most humble. This fame of holiness, vibrant during his lifetime and maintained after his death around his tomb in Acri, led to the opening of his cause.

Angelo of Acri was beatified on December 18, 1825, by Pope Leo XII (some sources indicate December 9), at the conclusion of a long process during which several miracles were recognized. His canonization took place nearly two centuries later: on March 23, 2017, Pope Francis recognized as authentic a healing attributed to his intercession, paving the way for canonization. The miracle accepted concerns, according to sources, the healing of a young man who was the victim of severe polytrauma following an accident in 2010, in the Archdiocese of Cosenza-Bisignano. Angelo of Acri was solemnly canonized by Pope Francis on October 15, 2017, in Saint Peter's Square in Rome, during a ceremony that included several other blesseds. His liturgical memorial is fixed for October 30, the day of his death; however, the proper calendar of the Capuchin Order sometimes celebrates it on October 31.

The legacy of Angelo of Acri is above all that of a great preacher of popular missions, whose memory remains deeply rooted in Calabria. His body is preserved in Acri, in the sanctuary-basilica dedicated to him, which constitutes an important place of pilgrimage for the region. An emblematic figure of Capuchin spirituality, he embodies a model of evangelization that is simple and close to the people, founded on the preaching of divine mercy and the assiduous practice of confession. His canonization in 2017 renewed the attention paid to his message, presented by the Capuchins as a testimony of merciful love. Venerated locally as the patron of Acri, he remains a reference for the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and for the popular devotion of Southern Italy, where his memory as the apostle of Calabria continues to be celebrated.