Alphonsus Liguori (1696 – 1787) was an Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, composer, musician, artist, poet, lawyer, scholastic philosopher, and theologian. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as the Redemptorists,  a religious congregation of are Catholic priests and consecrated religious brothers dedicated to missionary work and for the purpose of labouring among the neglected country people around Naples. He was canonized in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVIand proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1871. One of the most widely read Catholic authors, he is the patron saint of confessors.