Roman Catholic Diocese of Alife-Caiazzo


The Diocese of Alife-Caiazzo is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory in Campania, southern Italy, created in 1986. In that year the historic Diocese of Alife was united with the Diocese of Caiazzo. The diocese is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Naples.
In 2014 the diocese had one priest for every 1,104 Catholics; in 2018 the diocese had one priest for every 1,240 Catholics.

History

The old diocese of Alife was made up of twelve communes in the province of Caserta, Archbishopric of Benevento. The name of a Bishop of Alife appears for the first time among the signatories of the Roman Synod of 499, in the time of Pope Symmachus Alife became a suffragan of the metropolitan archbishop of Benevento in 969, when Pope John XIII created the ecclesiastical province of Benevento.

Augmentation of the diocese

On 18 February 1984, the Vatican and the Italian State signed a new and revised concordat, which was accompanied in the next year by enabling legislation. According to the agreement, the practice of having one bishop govern two separate dioceses at the same time, aeque personaliter, was abolished. Otherwise Caiazzo and Alise, who shared a bishop, might have become the diocese of Alise e Caiazzo. Instead, the Vatican continued consultations which had begun under Pope John XXIII for the merging of small dioceses, especially those with personnel and financial problems, into one combined diocese. On 30 September 1986, Pope John Paul II ordered that the dioceses of Caiazzo and Alise be merged into one diocese with one bishop, with the Latin title Dioecesis Aliphana - Caiacensis. The seat of the diocese was to be in Alise, and the cathedral of Alise was to serve as the cathedral of the merged diocese. The cathedral in Caiazzo was to become a co-cathedral, and the cathedral Chapter was to be a Capitulum Concathedralis. There was to be only one diocesan Tribunal, in Alise, and likewise one seminary, one College of Consultors, and one Priests' Council. The territory of the new diocese was to include the territory of the former dioceses of Caiazzo and Alise.

Bishops of Alife

Erected: 5th Century
Metropolitan: Archdiocese of Benevento

to 1500

United: 30 September 1986 with the Diocese of Caiazzo
Latin Name: Aliphanus-Caiacensis o Caiatinus