Archdiocese of Agrigento

The Archdiocese of Agrigento (Latin: Archidioecesis Agrigentina) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Sicily, Italy. The historic diocese of Agrigento, was sometimes known colloquially as the Diocese of Girgenti, and Diocese of Agrigentum. From 1183, it was a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Monreale. A metropolitan see since 2000, the Archdiocese of Agrigento has two suffragan dioceses in its ecclesiastical province. History Agrigento (the Greek Acragas, Roman Agrigentum) was founded in the early 6th century B.C. by Greeks from Gela. Legend considers Saint Libertinus its earliest proselytizer; he is said to have been sent by Saint Peter, in 44 A.D. Local enthusiasm for an Apostolic connection even led someone to forge a bull of investiture, an instrument which was not created until centuries later. Gregory of Agrigento, said to have been martyred in 262, never existed. His name occurs in the hagiographical work, "The Life of St. Agrippina", but the author of that work, a person of the eighth or ninth century, placed the sixth century Bishop Gregory of Agrigento in the wrong context. The earliest bishop is said to have been Potamius, who was believed by some to be a contemporary of Pope Agapetus I (535–536). Other scholars, however, place him in the seventh century. Through the 7th century, there was no metropolitan in Sicily, and each of the dioceses depended directly upon the pope. Bishop Felix of Agrigento attended the Lateran council of Pope Martin I in October 649, and Bishop Georgius attended the Lateran synod of Pope Agapetus II in October 679. The Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (717–741) removed the dioceses of Sicily, including Agrigento, from Roman control and made them suffragans of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In the mid-9th (or 10th) century, Basil of Ialimbana revised the geography of George of Cyprus with the addition of a Notitia episcopuum, in which the diocese of Agrigento appears as a suffragan of Syracuse. The succession of bishops was interrupted by the Saracen occupation of all of Sicily (879–1038). In the spring of 1087, after several earlier raids, Count Roger d'Hauteville began the siege of Agrigento. The town surrendered in July. Pope Urban II (1088–1099) made Count Roger and his successors papal legate in Sicily. The Normans A bishop was again appointed for Agrigento in 1093, the Burgundian Garlando, a blood-relative of Count Roger d'Hauteville. He was consecrated a bishop by Pope Urban II. Since there was no metropolitan in Sicily, each new Latin rite bishop depended directly on Rome. In a decree of 1093, Count Roger fixed the boundaries of the diocese, which extended across central Sicily, from the Mediterranean in the south, as far east as Butera, to the Tyrrhenian Sea in the north, including territory from Terme (Termini Imerese) to a point east of Cefalù. When the new diocese of Cefalù was established on 4 September 1131, the diocese of Agrigento lost the Tyrrhenian seacoast, and nearly all of its territory north of the Sicanian Mountains. On 10 July 1154, Pope Adrian IV established the first Latin metropolitanate on the island of Sicily, at Palermo. Agrigento was appointed to be one of its suffragans. This was confirmed by Pope Alexander III on 25 April 1160. The bishop of Agrigento was required to swear an oath of obedience to the archbishop of Palermo annually on 15 August. On the death of the Emperor Frederick II in 1250, his son Manfred was appointed regent in Sicily for his brother, the Emperor Conrad. when Conrad died of malaria in 1254, Manfred became regent for his nephew Conradin. On the report, untrue as it was discovered, of the death of Conradin in 1258, Manfred assumed the kingship of Sicily. He was crowned in Palermo on 10 August 1258 by Bishop Rinaldo di Acquaviva of Agrigento. For this act of defiance against Pope Alexander IV, he was excommunicated. Chapter and cathedral The cathedral of S. Gerlando was consecrated on 9 November 1305. The annual festival of S. Gerlando takes place on 25 February. The cathedral is administered and served by a corporation called the Chapter, which is led by four dignities: the Dean, the Cantor, the Archdeacon, and the Treasurer, and in addition fourteen canons, up to 1567; to which six others were added later. In 1672, there were nineteen canons; in 1755, there were twenty. The Chapter had the right to elect the bishop, subject to royal and papal approval. Aragonese Sicily (1282–1516) As a consequence of the uprising of Easter 1282, the Angevins were driven out of Sicily, and eventually Peter III of Aragon, the husband of Constance II of Sicily, made himself king of Sicily. He was proclaimed in Palermo on 4 September 1282, over the objections of Pope Martin IV (Simon de Brie), a Freenchman, who excommunicated him. During the great Western Schism, the Kings of Aragon, Castile, France, and Naples supported the papal authority of Avignon, rather than that of Rome. The king of Sicily followed his own wishes of the time. In 1392, on the death of Bishop Agatho, the cathedral Chapter elected Gilford Riccobono, Archdeacon of Palermo and chamberlain of the Roman pope Boniface IX, to be bishop of Agrigento; they submitted his election certificate to Boniface IX for confirmation, which the pope was happy to do, while fulminating against the many schismatics and heretics in Sicily who were favorers of the Catalonians. Pope Clement VII (Avignon Obedience) appointed Pietro Curto (de Curtibus) bishop of Agrigento on 2 June 1393. In 1394, the Regent Martin of Aragon, nephew of King John I of Aragon arrived in Sicily, and sent messengers to Boniface IX demanding that Ricobono be sent to him. When the archbishop of Palermo Nicolaus de Agrigento died in 1395, Riccobono was named Apostolic Administrator of Palermo on 10 June 1396, and came to Palermo with the additional title of Papal Legate to Sicily, a title which the kings of Sicily had always enjoyed. Boniface also named him apostolic administrator of the diocese of Agrigento. He died in 1398. In 1408, King Martin I of Sicily issued a decree stating that, after an election by the Chapter meeting with the queen's consent, and within the statutory time limit of six months, no bishop was to be accepted to fill a vacancy without the king's express command. Pope Julius II, in a bull issued in Rome on 25 June 1507, granted his blood-relative and chamberlain, Giuliano Cibò, Bishop of Agrigento (1506–1537), exemption from the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Palermo. In 1546, Ignatius of Loyola sent the first Jesuit, Jacob Lhoost, to the Island of Sicily, to Agrigento, at the request of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, the Administrator of the diocese of Agrigento. They were given the church of S. Margaret in Sciacca (Sacca), where they established a house in 1558, with the assistance of the duke and duchess of Bivona. Bishop Juan Orozco y Covarrubias (1594–1606) invited the Jesuits to found a college in Agrigento. He also founded a printing house in the city. In accordance with the decrees of the Council of Trent, Bishop Cesare Marullo (1574–1577) established the priestly seminary of Agrigento. Bishop Vincenzo Bonincontro, O.P. (1607–1622) procured the Palazzo Chiaramonti and attached buildings to house the seminary. Bishop Saverio Granata (1795–1817) added physics, mathematics, and the Italian language to the curriculum of the seminary. Synods Bishop Didacus (Diego) Haedo (1585–1599) held a diocesan synod in 1589, and published its decrees and the diocesan statutes. Another diocesan synod was held by Bishop Vincenzo Bonincontro, O.P. (1607–1622) in 1610. Bishop Francesco Traina (1627–1651) held a diocesan synod on 3 October 1630. Bishop Ferdinando Sanchez de Cuellar, O.S.A. (1653–1657) presided at a diocesan synod held on 6–7 June 1655. Bishop Francesco Ramírez, O.P. (1697–1715) established the Collegio of S. Agostino e Tommaso next to the seminary. He held a diocesan synod in 1703. In 1672, the city of Agrigento had a population of about 14,000 inhabitants. Bourbon Sicily (1735–1860) In 1755, the city of Agrigento had about 25,000 inhabitants, in six parishes. On 20 May 1844, Pope Gregory XVI, in the bull "In Suprema", in which he created the new ecclesiastical province of Siracusa, ordered that the diocese of Cefalù be a suffragan of Palermo, and the diocese of Agrigento a suffragan of Monreale instead of Palermo, as it had previously been. The town of Castronuovo and six others were removed from the diocese of Agrigento and assigned to the diocese of Palermo. On 25 May 1844, the new diocese of Caltanissetta was established by Pope Gregory XVI, in the bull "Ecclesiae Universalis," and, to form its diocesan territory, fourteen towns (oppida) were taken from the diocese of Agrigento. In the aftermath of the revolutions in 1848 in Rome and in Palermo, with the pope driven into exile and with the republicanism and anticlericalism of Giuseppe Garibaldi and Francesco Crispi spread throughout Sicily, the bishops of Sicily felt an urgent need to formulate a response. Cardinal Ferdinando Pignatelli, Archbishop of Palermo summoned a meeting of all the bishops and other prominent prelates of Sicily, including Bishop Domenico Lo Jacono of Agrigento, which met in Palermo in June and July 1850. A set of Statutes was agreed upon, the first three sections of which dealt in minute detail with the selection, training, and activities of priests and monks, none of the provisions being new or unfamiliar. The fourth dealt with the laity, emphasizing prohibitions against forbidden books, nude images, concubinage, usury, and drunkenness. Obedience to the clergy was mandated. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the Immaculate Conception was advised. Rather than being a genuine reform, the Statutes sought to reiterate proper behavior. In 1860, the Bourbon monarchy was overthrown, and replaced by the king of Sardinia (Savoy). His kingdom's aggression against the Papal States brought the refusal of the Papacy to recognize his right to nominate or approve bishops (exequatur). Bishops were subsequently named and approved by the pope. In Sicily, Garibaldi made himself a virtual dictator, and expelled all the Jesuits and redemptorists on the island. Fifteen Jesuit houses were closed and repurposed. Basilication On 2 July 1941, Pope Pius XII granted the church of S. Francis of Assisi in the city of Agrigento, with its sanctuary of the wooden statue of Mary Immaculate, the status of "minor basilica." The cathedral of S. Gerlando was granted the honorary title of "minor basilica" by Pope Pius XII on 14 December 1951. Pope John Paul II granted the status of "minor basilica" to the church of San Calogero al Monte di Sciacca in the diocese of Agrigento on 24 September 1979. Archdiocese An administrative reorganization of the dioceses of Sicily was approved by Pope John Paul II on 2 December 2000. The diocese of Agrigento was elevated to the status of an archdiocese, while the diocese of Piazza Armerina was removed from the ecclesiastical province of Siracusa and the diocese of Catalanissetta was removed from the province of Monreale. They become suffragan (subordinate) to the newly elevated Archdiocese of Agrigento in the new ecclesiasstical province of Agrigento. Bishops to 1300 1300 to 1500 1500 to 1818 since 1818 Baldassare Leone (2 Oct 1818 – 22 Jul 1820 Died) Pietro Maria d'Agostino (17 Nov 1823 – 18 Jul 1835) Sede vacante (1835–1837) Ignazio Giuseppe Nicola Epifanio Montemagno, O.F.M. Conv. (2 Oct 1837 – 1839) Sede vacante (1839–1844) Domenico-Maria-Giuseppe Lo Jacono, C.R. (17 Jun 1844 – 1860) Sede vacante (1860–1872) Domenico Turano (23 Feb 1872 – 2 Feb 1885 Died) Gaetano Blandini (2 Feb 1885 – 19 May 1898) Bartolomeo Maria Lagumina (28 Nov 1898 – 5 May 1931) Giovanni Battista Peruzzo, C.P. (15 Jan 1932 – 20 Jul 1963) Giuseppe Petralia (14 Oct 1963 – 2 May 1980 Resigned) Luigi Bommarito (2 May 1980 – 1 Jun 1988) Appointed, Archbishop of Catania Carmelo Ferraro (3 Nov 1988 – 1 Dec 2000) Archbishops Carmelo Ferraro (2 Dec 2000 – 23 Feb 2008 Resigned) Cardinal Francesco Montenegro (23 Feb 2008 – 22 May 2021) Alessandro Damiano (22 May 2021 – present) Suffragan sees Diocese of Caltanissetta Diocese of Piazza Armerina References and notes Additional sources Reference Works Eubel, Conradus, ed. (1913). Hierarchia catholica (in Latin). Vol. 1 (Tomus 1) (second ed.). Münster: Libreria Regensbergiana. Eubel, Conradus, ed. (1914). Hierarchia catholica (in Latin). Vol. 2 (Tomus 2) (second ed.). Münster: Libreria Regensbergiana. Eubel, Conradus, ed. (1923). 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