The Redemptorists are a congregation of missionary priests founded to bring the gospel to those the ordinary parish structure failed to reach, and their history is bound up with the moral theology of their founder.
Missions to the neglected
The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer was founded by Alphonsus Liguori at Scala in the Kingdom of Naples in 1732, dedicated to preaching parish missions and retreats among the rural and urban poor whom the settled clergy neglected. The characteristic work of the congregation is the mission, an intensive period of preaching, confession and devotion brought to a parish to revive its religious life, and this pastoral aim shaped the whole order. Liguori himself was a theologian, and his moral theology, pastoral and moderate against the rigorism of his day, became one of the most influential bodies of Catholic ethical teaching and a mark of the congregation.
An order of preachers and confessors
The Redemptorists spread across Europe and to the Americas, carrying the parish mission wherever they went, and they became particularly associated with the pastoral care of immigrant and working communities. Liguori was canonised and later named a Doctor of the Church, which set the seal on the intellectual tradition of the congregation. The order continues as a body of priests and brothers engaged in preaching, mission and pastoral work, keeping the founding orientation toward the people least served by the ordinary ministry of the church.