Roman Catholic Diocese of Alba Pompeia


The Italian Catholic Diocese of Alba Pompeia or Alba Pompea comprises eighty towns in the civil Province of Cuneo and two in the Province of Asti.
It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Turin.

History

The earliest figure in the traditional list of the bishops of Alba is a St. Dionysius, of whom the story is told that after serving in Alba for some years he became Archbishop of Milan. He was the Dionysius who so energetically opposed Arianism and was exiled in the year 355 by the Emperor Constans. Daniel Papebroch disputes the reliability of this tradition, since a bishop of that period was forbidden to leave his diocese for another.
A list of nine early bishops of Alba, from another St. Dionysius down to a Bishop Julius, was compiled from sepulchral inscriptions found in the cathedral of Alba towards the end of the fifteenth century by Dalmazzo Berendenco, an antiquarian. Giovanni Battista De Rossi, however, on examination of the inscriptions proved them to be a forgery.
The first bishop of Alba whose existence is certain is Lampradius who was present at the synod held in Rome in 499 under Pope Symmachus. In the series of bishops, Benzo of Alba is notable as an adversary of Pope Gregory VII and a partisan of the Empire in the Investiture controversy.
The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa spent Christmas of 1159 in Alba.
The prominence of natives of Mantua among the bishops of Alba in the 16th and 17th centuries is accounted for by the grant of the Marquisate of Montferrat to the Dukes of Mantua by the Emperor Charles V in 1536. With the marquisate came the patronage previously enjoyed by the Dukes of Savoy. This arrangement persisted until 1708, when the House of Savoy acquired Montferrat and the patronage over the bishopric of Alba.
Bishop Lodovico Gonzaga held a diocesan synod in 1636.
A diocesan synod, the first in more than thirty years, was held by Bishop Eugenio Roberto Galletti in September 1873.

Cathedral and Chapter

The office of Penitentiary in the Cathedral Chapter was created by Bishop Paolo Brizio de Braida on 15 January 1644.
In 1856 the Chapter was composed of five dignities and fourteen Canons. The dignities were: the Archdeacon, the Archpriest, the Provost, the Cantor, and the Dean. The cathedral was considered a parish church, and was supervised by the Archpriest; there were two residentiary chaplains.

French conquest

When the French revolution guillotined King Louis XVI, King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia declared war on the French Republic, but in three successive engagements, the Battle of Montenotte, the Battle of Millesimo and the Battle of Mondovi, General Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Piedmontese. In suing for peace, Victor Amadeus was forced to cede Savoy and Nice to France. The territory became part of the Department of Mont-Blanc. King Victor Amadeus died on 18 October 1796, and his son and successor, Carlo Emanuele was forced to abdicate on 6 December 1798. Bonaparte crossed the Alps again in the Spring of 1800, intent on driving the Austrians out of the Po Valley. The victory at the Battle of Marengo gave the French control of most of Lombardy.
The French government, in the guise of ending the practices of feudalism, confiscated the incomes and benefices of the bishops and priests, and made them employees of the state, with a fixed income and the obligation to swear an oath of loyalty to the French constitution. As in metropolitan France, the government program also included reducing the number of bishoprics, making them conform as far as possible with the civil administration's "departments". Following the Concordat of 1801 between Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII, the Pope issued a bull, Gravissimis causis, in which the number of diocese in Piedmont was reduced to eight: Turin, Vercelli, Ivrea, Acqui, Asti, Mondovi, Alessandria and Saluzzo. Alba was suppressed, and its territory was handed over to the diocese of Asti. Bishop Vitale of Alba was required to resign.
The Kingdom of Sardinia and the Papal States were restored by the Congress of Vienna. The confused situation of the dioceses in Piedmont was addressed by Pope Pius VII in his bull, Beati Petri as far as the redrawing of diocesan boundaries was concerned. The diocese of Alba was restored, and it temporarily took control of the territory of the suppressed diocese of Mondovi, until it too was restored on 29 October 1817.

Territorial adjustments

Diocese of Alba Pompeia

to 1100

from 1100 to 1400

The number of Catholics recorded for the diocese in 1920 was 150,500 and there were 101 parishes, 316 secular and 11 regular clergy, 43 seminarians, 675 churches or chapels, 6 brothers, and 180 sisters. In 1962 the diocese had 137 parishes, 242 secular priests, 62 religious priests, and 41 seminarians.
The diocese currently has 126 parishes, all within the region of Piedmont. Three are in the Province of Asti and 123 in the Province of Cuneo.

Studies