It’s Calabria, not Basilicata

Allow me to make a technical comment regarding the recent consecration of Cardinal Prospero Grech, OSA, as titular Archbishop of San Leone, which took place at St John’s Co-Cathedral on February 8.

I wish to point out that the media, various adverts and even religious commentators have referred erroneously to the diocese of San Leone as a suppressed diocese in the region of Basilicata, Italy.

Actually, the diocese of which Cardinal Grech is now titular archbishop is in Calabria, and precisely at the commune of Scandale, in the province of Crotone.

The diocese of San Leone was erected well before the 14th century and its bishop was a suffragan of the Archbishop of Santa Severina. It was suppressed on November 27, 1571 due to financial problems and fully incorporated in the archdiocese of Santa Severina. Nowadays it is only a titular episcopal see as the old episcopal see of the city of San Leone no longer exists.

Interestingly, among the bishops of the old diocese of San Leone were two other members of the Order of St Augustine though they belonged to the Hermit branch, namely Nicola de Lorenzo (1391-1400) and Geminiano Giovanni de Sochefani (1404-?).