Saint Cajetan of Thiene

He soon combined study with piety, and succeeded so perfectly that in a few years he became a good orator, an excellent philosopher, a learned jurisconsult, and a very profound theologian, and even obtained the degree of doctor of canon and civil law, not through favor, but for his extraordinary capacity, which caused him to be considered one of the most skilled in his faculty. His restraint during his studies was so great that he lived more like a religious than a gentleman: so much so that he was already regarded as a mirror of wisdom, a model of perfection, and a powerful restraint to curb the libertinism of young people, which was extreme at that time. Having become master of his property, he devoted a portion of it, together with John the Baptist, his elder, to building a chapel in Rampazzo, in the Vicentine territory, under the name of Saint Mary Magdalene, for the convenience of the inhabitants of that place, who, being too far from their parish, often found themselves in danger of not attending the holy sacrifice. He endowed it with a decent income for the maintenance of a chaplain, who would be obliged to celebrate Mass there assiduously. His love for God then led him to embrace the ecclesiastical state: he was a model of all virtues there through the example of his gravity, his recollection, his assiduous prayer, his frequent communions, his charity towards the unfortunate, his gentleness and patience in adversity, and all other virtues; he reformed, by himself, almost the entire city of Vicenza: he acquired the reputation of a very pious and very holy young man.

The desire to perfect himself further and, at the same time, to obtain great graces through the merits of the blessed apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, prompted him to go to R Rome Birthplace of Maximian. ome. He wished to remain hidden there and perform his devotions in secret; but his distinguished piety, joined to his nobility and erudition, soon discovered him. Pope Julius II wished to see him, and, recognizing in him the marks of an eminent holiness from which the Church might one day derive great advantages, he begged him to remain at his court. This was hardly the inclination of Gaetano, who sought only to live retired and solitary, to occupy himself with God alone; but His Holiness engaged him in it by first giving him the office of apostolic protonotary, one of the most considerable prelacies in Rome. The company of protonotaries of this city still recognizes today the glory it had in having Saint Gaetano in its body, by assembling every year, on the day of his feast, in the church of his Order, and having a solemn mass in music celebrated there in his honor, which is followed by his panegyric. However, this holy man, far from adopting the morals and manners of courtiers, worked on the contrary with success to make those of the Pope's court, however unregulated it was then, adopt morals and manners conformable to the maxims of Christian piety. There was then in Rome a congregation called of Divine Love, established in the church of Saint Sy Amour-Divin Roman congregation dedicated to charity and spiritual reform. lvester and Saint Dorothy, whose main end was to kindle the fire of the love of God in hearts, and to prevent heresy, libertinism, the love of pleasure, and the passion of interest from banishing it. Gaetano entered this Congregation, which was composed of the most illustrious of the city. No sooner had he entered it than, joining the strength of his words and exhortations to the holiness of his examples, he animated all the congregants to work with a new fervor for their perfection and the end of their vocation. People communicated very rarely then, and the most virtuous persons only approached the holy Table three or four times a year: but the Servant of God did so much by his remonstrances that one soon saw several communicating every month, others every week, and others, finally, besides Sundays and feast days, some days in the week. This custom, continued since, has extended to other cities of Christendom, to the great profit of the faithful.

The Pope having given him a brief of extra tempora and dispensation of interstices, he received the subdiaconate, the diaconate, and the priesthood, on three feasts quite close to one another. Since then, he said mass very often: he brought to it so much devotion and fervor that one would have taken him at the altar for a seraph entirely consumed by the ardors of divine love. At this time, he received from heaven a very extraordinary favor: having entered the church of Saint Mary Major on Christmas Eve, Our Lord made Himself seen to him in the state in which He was at His temporal birth, and the Blessed Virgin placed in his hands this dear child, who had just been born, and let him touch corporally and sensibly the most pure flesh with which the eternal Word clothed Himself. This is how he speaks of it himself in one of his letters to Sister Laura, a nun of the convent of the Holy Cross, in Brescia. The death of his mother, Maria Porta, for whom he obtained, through his tears, not to pass through purgatory, obliged him to return to Vicenza. The first thing he did there was to join the congregation of Saint Jerome, of that of Divine Love, which he had embraced in Rome, and which also kept the same statutes. His relatives did what they could to dissuade him from it, because it was composed only of artisans and other persons of low condition;

But, as he sought neither greatness nor fame, but only ways to advance in virtue, he despised all their remonstrances and had his name written among these poor brethren, with all the more affection as it was bound to bring him contempt. One cannot conceive of the advantages that this company received from the assistance of this zealous servant of God. He often gave them exhortations and conferences; being himself powerfully touched by divine truths, he then touched them so strongly that one could see them melting into tears, and no one could oppose what he proposed to them for their correction and spiritual advancement. He was especially admirably eloquent when he spoke of the love that Our Lord shows us by giving Himself to us in the Holy Sacrament of the altar: and he convinced these poor people of it so well that they established among themselves the holy custom of receiving communion three times a week.

It was not enough for our Blessed one to exercise himself with his brethren in hidden virtues, in the secret of their oratory; he also wanted his charity to spread to all the sick of the city: he procured the union of his Congregation with the hospital for the incurable, called the Hospital of Mercy: from this came heroic acts of humility, patience, compassion towards the miserable, and solicitude to help them. He went into the poorest houses to find them and bring them to the hospital. He spent almost all his income and a large part of his patrimony for their relief: he served them himself, however repulsive they might be, with invincible courage: he made their beds, dressed their wounds, cleaned the linens and everything they had used, and above all, he applied himself to having them confess well and to disposing them holily for death, when it pleased God to call them.

However, as no one is capable of guiding himself well, Gaetano placed himself under the guidance of the Reverend Father Giovanni Battista of Crema, of the Order of Saint Dominic, an excellent director. It was through this organ that God made His will known to our Saint: he thus had to apply himself to works that his humility would have always prevented him from undertaking. When he was in the greatest fervor of his exercises at the hospital, and his presence there seemed most necessary, whether to maintain good order, or to maintain the devotion of an infinity of people of the city who, following his example, ran there every day to serve the poor, or to complete many projects of piety that he had begun, this faithful guide, who had, so to speak, the word from heaven, ordered him to leave all these commitments immediately and go to live in Venice. Gaetano obeyed at once, and, closing his eyes to all sorts of human considerations that could hold him back, he left Vice nza, h Venise Final location of the transfer of relics in 1200. is own country, and went to the city that was marked for him. This obedience, from whatever side one considers it, is so eminent that we can well compare it to that which the patriarch Abraham showed, not only when he left his homeland and his father's house, but also when he climbed Mount Moriah to sacrifice his beloved son there.

Vicenza wept bitterly at the departure and distance of such a holy personage, from whom it received such great advantages; but Venice, where his reputation had already preceded him, received him with a joy that cannot be expressed. If he changed place, he did not for that change his tastes or his conduct. He lodged in the hospital that had just been built: he was so useful to it through the wise regulation he put in place, through the spiritual and temporal help he gave to the sick, through the number of considerable people that his example attracted there to assist these suffering members of Jesus Christ, that no one had any difficulty in calling him its founder. He was the universal refuge of all the afflicted of the city. He consoled some, relieved others in their poverty, protected those he found in oppression, animated those he saw in discouragement, gave pious and learned solutions to those who were in anxiety; in a word, no one addressed him without finding in his charity a remedy for their pain, without returning either better or more content. But what was wonderful was to see, with that, this holy Man, who exhausted himself day and night by the laborious exercises of the hospital, contenting himself with bread and water for his food, and, without regard for the nobility of his blood, which made him called Count Gaetano, nor for his quality as a protonotary and prelate of the Roman court, wearing only a cassock and a cloak of vile fabric, which could not distinguish him from the poorest ecclesiastics of the countryside. The Venetians profited greatly from this example, and the reform that took place in the city and in the whole State on this model attracted the blessings of heaven and preserved it from the scourges with which, at that time, all the rest of Europe was almost overwhelmed.

The director of our Blessed one could not sufficiently admire the progress of his disciple; he saw that Venice was not the end of his labors, and that God destined him to serve the universal Church. He believed he should send him to Rome, the mother of all Churches, so that this river might spread from there, as from a source, over the whole Christian world. He therefore commanded him, as God did a second time to the patriarch Abraham, to leave the place where he had established himself to go and exercise his zeal in Rome. When Gaetan had arrived there, he bonded more than ever with the great men who composed the congregation of Divine Love, numbering sixty, all persons illustrious either by their birth, or by their erudition, or by the fine offices to which they were raised, and all animated by the same zeal to reform the disorders by which not only the Christian people, but also the ecclesiastical Orders were miserably disfigured. For, at that time, after the wars that had devastated all of Italy and a great part of Europe, vice had become so unleashed and spread over the whole earth, and even over the principal members of the Church, that one could, in some way, apply to it these words of the prophet Isaiah: A planta pedis usque ad verticem non est in ea sanitas; "there is no soundness in it from the sole of the foot to the top of the head." The goal of this Congregation was therefore to correct such great evils, and they tried at least to remedy them in the city of Rome, so that, the one which was like the head being healed, health could be more easily communicated to all the others.

But as, with all their efforts, they were not advancing much, God inspired four of the principal members of this company to institute an Order of Clerics Regular who, living in the holiest reform that one could imagine, would work continually to restore to the clergy the ancient splendor it had in the time of the Apostles. The first was Gian Pietro Carafa, then bishop of Theate or Chieti, in the kingdom of N Jean-Pierre Caraffa Future pope who collaborated with Jerome in Venice. aples, and archbishop of Brindisi, and later cardinal and pope under the name of Paul IV; the second was Gaetan of Thiene, who is the Saint whose life we are writing; the third was Paul Consiglieri, of the noble family of the Ghisleri, who joined all his life an eminent holiness to a consummate wisdom and prudence; the fourth was Boniface of Colle, of an ancient house of the city of Alexandria, in the Milanese, who showed well, by a great number of heroic actions, that he was very worthy of being of the number of these blessed founders.

Saint Gaetan was the one who made the first proposal of an establishment so useful to Christianity. God had given him the thought as soon as he was in Venice; but the time to make it burst forth had not yet arrived. Being in Rome, he communicated it to Boniface of Colle, who, also meditating on the same design, willingly joined him to procure its execution. Moreover, the bishop of Theate, to whom the disorders he saw in the clergy caused an inconceivable pain, was secretly forming a similar project, and was only waiting for the opportunity to make it succeed. Thus, having been informed that Gaetan had opened the proposal, he came to find him, expressed his joy at such a glorious enterprise, and begged him to receive him as a companion in the new Order he wanted to establish. The Saint refused at first, not approving that such a great prelate should leave his Church and the service of the Holy See to become a religious. But the bishop redoubled his instances until he threw himself at his feet and made him responsible for his soul if he refused him this favor. Gaetan was obliged to condescend to his desires. Paul Consiglieri, who was the depositary of all the secrets of this bishop, followed him. Thus, these four founders being assembled on the day of the Invention of the Holy Cross, the year 1524, begged Pope Clement VII to discharge them from their benefices, and to approve the institution that the Holy Spirit had inspired in them. His Holiness had much difficulty in accepting the resignation that the bishop of Theate wanted to make of his bishopric; but he yielded at last to the strength of his reasons and his prayers. The sacred college of cardinals was consulted on the project of this new establishment; it also found great difficulties there, because these zealous founders did not want only to live without funds and without fixed and assured revenues, like the religious of Saint Francis; but they wanted, moreover, to oblige themselves never to ask for anything, and to wait without begging for what Divine Providence would send them for their subsistence: which most of the cardinals judged impossible. For, what appearance, they said, that entire communities could live without having anything, without earning anything with their hands and without asking for anything! Who will know their needs? Who will guess their necessities? And will not the most charitable persons, for lack of reflection on their indigence, let them continually lack the things most necessary for life? But the bishop of Theate and Saint Gaetan refuted this objection, and showed that this conduct was entirely apostolic and evangelical, being founded on the example and the promise of Jesus Christ and on the practice of the Apostles and the first disciples, who possessed nothing, and nevertheless did not quit and awaited their subsistence from the free and anticipating charity of the faithful; they finally obtained the approval they requested.

Thus, in the same year 1524, on September 14, the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, these four founders having renounced all their benefices and all their goods, of which the poor had the best part, made profession in the church of Saint Peter, at the Vatican, in the hands of the lord Jean-Baptiste Bonzien, bishop of Caserta and apostolic datary, whom the Pope had deputed to receive their vows. The bull of approval had been dispatched on June 25 before: the Pope gives them absolutely and without restriction the name of Clerics Regular, as if by haste and by excellence. They proceeded immediately to the election of a superior, who was the bishop of Theate, to whom His Holiness had kept the title of bishop: hence the name Theatines given to these religious.

Here are the principal ends of this institute: 1° to give a mod el to th Théatins Religious order founded by Saint Gaetano of Thiene. e clerics, who lived, at that time, in grave disorders, and had great need of reform; 2° to give the example of a perfect poverty; 3° to re-establish the cleanliness of the churches and altars and the majesty of the holy ceremonies, which being done without reverence, gave occasion to the heretics to decry them and to pass them off as superstitions; 4° to animate the faithful to the frequentation of the Sacraments, which were then so little in use, that most Christians only confessed and communicated once a year, and did so without contrition, without design to amend, and with a nonchalance that made the few who remained of good people groan; 5° to announce in a learned and pious manner the word of God, which the preachers of that time often mixed with a profane and ridiculous language; 6° to visit the sick to dispose them to receive the Sacraments, and especially to strengthen the dying against the temptations of the demon and the assaults of death; 7° to accompany the evildoers to the scaffold, in order to make them avoid the rigor of eternal punishments; 8° to pursue everywhere the heresies that had been renewed, for some years, by the impiety of Luther and some other apostates of Germany. One sees by this how much this institute was useful to the Church, all the more so as it has also served as a model for the establishment of several other companies of Clerics Regular which have spread throughout the Christian world and have served much there for the confirmation of the faith and the re-establishment of good morals.

When the four founders had made their profession, they retired to the Champ-de-Mars, in a house that had belonged to Boniface de Colle. There, they joined the exercises of the active life to those of the contemplative life. Gaetano applied himself with even more fervor than the others to prayer, the celebration of the divine Mysteries, the administration of the Sacraments, the preaching of the word of God, the visiting of hospitals, and the assistance of the sick. He made his zeal and generosity shine forth primarily during a contagious disease that broke out in Italy and spread as far as the city of Rome. For the hospitals having, in a short time, become filled with the sick, one saw him there continually, with his confreres, applying himself to the relief of these unfortunates, whether for the restoration of their health, or to console them and prepare them for their final hour, if their illness was mortal. In a word, the life and conduct of these holy ecclesiastics were so pure and so edifying that the name of Theatines began to be taken commonly for that of pious and holy: which caused all those in Rome who made a profession of extraordinary reform and piety to be called Theatines. Several persons of merit also joined this blessed troop, and the number of Clerks Regular rose to twelve, who all had but one heart, one soul, one spirit, one will, and one inclination: it was to love God and to make Him loved by everyone. Their house at the Champ-de-Mars became too small for their number; they were obliged to take another on the Pincian Hill. They had stayed two years in the first.

They hardly inhabited the second for more than two years either; they had to leave it at the taking of Rome by Charles de Bourbon, Constable of France, who had abandoned the service of Francis I, prise de Rome Tragic event of 1527 during which Gaetano was tortured. his king and legitimate lord, to give himself to Charles V, Emperor, whose army he led. One cannot conceive of the violence, murders, sacrileges, and impieties that this conquering army committed in the capital city of Christendom. As it was composed of barbarians, heretics, and libertines who had neither faith nor religion, they profaned the churches, overturned the altars, trampled the holy Mysteries underfoot, burned the relics of the Saints, violated the tombs, and went to seek riches even in the sepulchers of the dead. Their avarice being insatiable, there was no house where they did not enter and commit unheard-of violence, not only to carry off the money and furniture that were there, but also to force the discovery of those they believed to be hidden. They whipped the most notable bourgeois, subjected others to the most horrible tortures, and even hanged or slaughtered several. The Clerks Regular, on this occasion, performed heroic acts of Christian generosity. They tried to stop the insolence of the officers and soldiers, sometimes by their prayers, sometimes by terrible remonstrances, threatening them with the wrath of God.

They went everywhere to help and care for the wounded, to assist the dying, to console those whom the loss of their goods and children was about to cast into despair, and to point out to everyone that this chastisement was a just punishment for their criminal and scandalous life. What did Gaetano not do in his own private capacity? How many blows did he not receive? How many wounded did he not transport to their homes to be bandaged? How many desperate people did he not restore to a complete abandonment to the will of God? How many dying did he not send to heaven through the benefit of sacramental absolution? How many dead did he not load onto his shoulders to bury them in the cemeteries?

But when these heroes of charity had endured so many labors and pains for the relief of their neighbor, they were themselves the object of the search and fury of this insolent and pitiless mob. We will not say how much they suffered from hunger for several days: the richest being reduced to misery, there was no one to give them those voluntary alms which were their entire income: divine Providence, to which they had abandoned themselves, provided them with food by means of a poor man who gathered from here and there what the soldiers, too heavily laden, let fall from their booty, or else some leftovers from their orgies. One of these impious men, who had formerly served Saint Gaetano in Vicenza, and had since enlisted in the troops of Georg von Frundsberg, a fanatical and brutal Lutheran, who, in coming to Rome, continually showed a golden cord with which he said he wanted to strangle the Pope, having recognized his former master, and believing that he was still rich as he had seen him formerly when he was in his service, incited his companions to throw themselves upon the house of the Clerks Regular to pillage it. The pillage was soon done: this house was so poor that there was almost nothing to take; but as these soldiers persuaded themselves that these priests had hidden their gold and silver somewhere, they made them suffer a thousand evils to force them to reveal it. Saint Gaetano, in particular, went through very cruel tortures: they squeezed his fingers in the opening of a chest, they hung him by extremely sensitive parts of his body, they loaded him with blows, and they inflicted upon him violence similar to that which was formerly done to the martyrs. The first soldiers having tired of tormenting him with his confreres, others arrived, more furious than the first; these barbarians, having been unable to tear from the mouths of the religious the admission of a treasure they did not have, led them to prison to torment them more at leisure. The patience of these holy priests, in the midst of so many evils, was marvelous: they did nothing but bless God, implore His help for the relief of the Roman people, and sing His praises, not only in their church, as long as they remained there, but also in the two prisons to which they were dragged. It was this singing of the divine office that gave occasion for their deliverance: for a camp master having heard their voice, and having gone to the place where they were, was so touched by their modesty, their gravity, and their devotion that he had them released.

When they were delivered, not being able to bear the profanations that were taking place everywhere in Rome, and not believing they could provide a remedy, they resolved to withdraw. They therefore left this pillaged and burned city, with no other goods than the clothes they had on their bodies and their Breviary which they carried under their arm. Providence did not abandon them on this occasion: they found a man who gave them a boat to take them to the port of Ostia. A captain of the Roman troops having ordered a volley fired at them, believing that they were soldiers of the Emperor who were carrying off part of their booty, no one in their company was wounded. This captain having recognized them, and, among them, one of his nephews, gave provisions for their journey; finally, the proveditore general of the Venetian galleys, who happened to be at Ostia, had them embark on his ship and conducted them safely to Venice. It was there that the Order of Clerks Regular took a second birth. The republic first lodged them at Saint Euphemia, which is a parish outside the city, then they were given the church and house of Saint George; finally, to make them more useful to this great city, they were placed at Saint Nicholas of Tolentino.

Shortly after, our Saint was sent to Naples t o foun Naples Place of the saint's death. d a house of Clerics Regular. He immediately set about obeying, although it was during the dog days of summer, when travel is very uncomfortable and even very dangerous and deadly in Italy.

The Bishop of Theate, who had a sovereign respect for his virtue and his great merits, asked him to take whichever companion he pleased. "How," he exclaimed, "that I should take the companion I like the most! No, that is not how one obeys. I pray, on the contrary, to my Savior (he then turned toward the crucifix), yes, I pray Him to inspire Your Reverence to give me the one whom He knows to be the least in conformity with my temperament and my will." The Bishop, admiring his humility, assigned him as a companion an excellent priest and preacher named John Marinoni. While passing through Rome, he went to kiss the feet of the Pope and ask for his blessing. The Pope, seeing his face and that of his companion all burned by the heat of the sun, said to them: "How is it, my children, that you set out on the road in the heat of these dog days and with such danger to your lives?" The Saint humbly replied: "It is better, Holy Father, to despise one's life than to fail in obedience to your commands."

When he was in Naples, he took possession of a house outside the city, which the Count of Oppido had prepared for this new establishment, and wrote to the Bishop of Theate, his superior, to have a greater number of workers. However, this Count, unable to appreciate the poverty that the blessed Gaetano professed, begged him insistently to accept some income to support his nascent community, representing to him that it was impossible for a large company to persist for long without this help, and that if it received sufficient alms for its food now, it would not be the same in the future, when the charity of the people toward them would have cooled. But the Saint, persuaded by the words of the Gospel that as long as his religious placed their trust in God, they would not lack the things necessary for life, and indifferent to their fate if they ceased to have this trust, entirely rejected this proposal as contrary to the spirit and constitutions of his Institute. The Count did not consider himself defeated; he employed other religious of great reputation to bend Gaetano's obstinacy. Then this holy man, who had not renounced his goods to enrich himself with the alms of the faithful, said to them: "Do me the favor, my brothers, of declaring to me what assurance you have of receiving your pensions, your rents, and your income annually?" — "We are sure of it," they said, "because the property belongs to us and we are its legitimate owners." — "But who assures you," he added, "that your farmers will pay you well and that they will not keep the fruits of your funds and inheritances for themselves?" — "It is," they replied, "that we have contracts and leases in good form, by virtue of which we can compel them to pay." — "Oh! how much better established our table is," said Gaetano then, "than yours, since it is supported, not on the writing and the breasts of men, but on the word and promise of God Himself, who says to us in Saint Matthew: Do not worry, saying: What shall we eat and what shall we do and what shall we wear? for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things: seek therefore first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these helps will be given to you."

He objected that his Order had until then experienced the truth of these promises of God. The Count told him that Venice was something other than Naples, because in Venice there was little luxury and much wealth, whereas in Naples there was little wealth and much luxury: "I believe, nevertheless," replied the Saint, "that the God of Venice is the God of Naples." The discussion was ended by this beautiful remark, and Gaetano's poverty triumphed over the liberality of the Count of Oppido. However, a few days later, the same Count having returned to the charge, the Saint, unable to suffer that his Order should relax from its birth an observance that was its entire support, ordered his religious one morning to take their habits and their breviaries, and, leaving the house with them, he had the doors locked and sent the keys back to the founder, informing him that they had nothing to do in Naples if they could not live there as Clerics Regular.

They therefore took the road to Venice; but the Count sent after them promptly, and made so many entreaties that they finally returned to Naples. They did not, however, return to their first house, but to another that Mary Laurence, superior of the convent of Sapienza, had rented for them inside the city, near the Hospital of the Incurables, whose church is called Saint Mary of the People. Saint Gaetano then did in this great city what he had done in Venice, and it received marvelous benefits from it. Many secular priests reformed themselves on the example of the regulars, and began to live with more holiness and to discharge their ministry more worthily. The magistrates and the people also profited from his instructions, and one soon saw luxury diminish, debauchery become rarer, and charity toward the poor warm up notably. The virtues of the Saint were so edifying that one could not look at him without being touched by a feeling of piety. He also began from then on to perform miracles. One of the lay brothers, leaving the house to go to some duty prescribed to him by obedience, injured himself so significantly on an iron grate that the bone near the heel was broken and several abscesses having formed there, the surgeons found no other way to heal him, or to save him from death, than to cut off his leg. Saint Gaetano asked them to defer the operation until the next day, and, at night, having entered the sick man's room, he unbandaged his foot, kissed his wound, made the sign of the cross over it, and recommended that he hope in God and implore the help of Saint Francis; then he replaced his bandages, said a short prayer, and returned to his cell. The sick man fell asleep, and, the next day, the surgeons having come to perform the operation, found his foot as healthy as if it had never had a wound. This wonder was soon published everywhere, and we find it approved in the inquiries that were made for the canonization of this great servant of God. Another of his religious having lost his senses, he restored them to him by the power of his prayers: which, among the miracles of the Saints, is quite extraordinary.

Pope Paul III, who had succeeded Clement VII, having given the cardinal's hat to the Bishop of Theate, superior of the Clerics Regular, our Saint was obliged to make a trip to Rome for the general assembly of his Order. As the three years of the superiorship of Naples were finished, he had another religious of great virtue substituted there. This religious complained to himself of this arrangement, believing that he had been burdened with a weight too heavy for him. But the Saint gave him this wise answer: "The charge that has been given to you, my father, will be easy for you to carry, if you take care to make yourself loved in Our Lord by those who must obey you." He did not fail to return to Naples; there, although he was not superior and had no other wish than to be the last of all the brothers, he nevertheless remained in charge of the main direction of affairs; as, in fact, as founder and institutor, he had to be the prime mover of all things. Seeing that the house that had been given to him near the Incurables was not large enough for a community, and that new obstacles presented themselves every day to having a more convenient one, he took the resolution a second time to leave the city and return to Venice: and he would have infallibly executed it, if the Viceroy, who knew how much fruit the Clerics Regular were bearing in Naples, had not opposed it and had not had the parish church of Saint Paul the Major given to him, with a neighboring house, located in a very advantageous district.

When he was at peace in this new dwelling, he redoubled his labors and his care for the spiritual and temporal relief of the whole city. It was by this means that he discovered three pernicious heretics who, under holy habits and a beautiful appearance of virtue, hid the impiety of Lutheranism with which they were infected and which they were spreading everywhere. The first was John Valdés, a gentleman from Catalonia, who, after having sown his errors in his country, had come to Naples to seduce the people and make them Lutheran; the second was Peter Vermigli, nicknamed Martyr, an eloquent man, but whom his apostasy from the Order of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine and his rebellion against the Church have rendered infamous in the minds of all true Catholics; the third was Bernardino Ochino, one of the great preachers of his century, and who had even been General of the Capuchin Order, but whom his vanity, his ambition, and his unchastity had precipitated into error; everything was to be feared from such a formidable triumvirate, and one cannot believe how many of these new preachers, whom one regarded as apostolic men, were corrupting minds and engaging people in impiety and heresy. But Saint Gaetano, with Father John Marinoni, havi Bernardin Ochin Capuchin preacher who became an apostate and was opposed by Gaetano. ng gone to hear them, discovered the poison that these children of Babylon were giving in golden cups, and without losing time they wrote about it to the Theatine Cardinal: at this news, the three impostors, fearing to be arrested, left Naples and all of Italy. Everyone knows that they died miserably later, hated and detested by everyone and even by the heretics.

This great service that Saint Gaetan had rendered to the city of Naples increased the affection that all good people held for him. He was nevertheless obliged to be absent from it and return to Venice, where, after his three years of obedience, he had been elected superior once again. But this absence was also only for three years; and, at the end of this time, he was returned to Naples by the General Chapter of his Order, which gave him the government of that house for the second time. These various changes did not change anything in his way of life. He was always the same, severe and pitiless toward his own body, but full of sweetness and kindness for all others. His mortification was so great that, when the Emperor Charles V came to Naples after the defeat of the infidels in Africa and the capture of the city of Tunis, although the pomp of his entry was one of the most brilliant and magnificent that had ever been made for any emperor and the Saint had only to open his window to see the greater part of this magnificence, he nevertheless deprived himself of it for the love of God and remained in prayer during the entire time of this ceremony. He was never without performing some bodily penance: the hair shirt or the cilice was his ordinary clothing; his temperance and sobriety were so great that they were well worth a continual fast; he sometimes even spent entire nights tearing his shoulders with bloody and pitiless disciplines, which came from the fact that he extremely humbled his flesh and regarded it as a dangerous and irreconcilable enemy. One day, it slipped out that he said he did not humble it any less than the devil. There was never a man more passionate for the glory of God, nor more ardent to procure the salvation of souls than he; that was his continual application, and it is what earned him the beautiful nickname of Hunter of Souls (*Venator animarum*). As he was very assiduous in pr Venator animarum Founder of the Theatine Order and 16th-century Catholic reformer. ayer and remained there for seven or eight hours at a time, all bathed in tears and all immersed in God, he also received inestimable graces and favors there. We have already noted the one with which he was honored in Rome when the Blessed Virgin placed the adorable Child Jesus in his arms. Another time, Our Lord appeared to him with his bloody wounds and invited him to bring his mouth close to his side to suck the sweetness that flows abundantly from his heart. And yet another day, this divine Sufferer called him, so that he might help him carry his cross. It was undoubtedly the cross of the iniquity of men, the weight and bitterness of which Gaetan felt keenly and which made him weep and groan continually. His ecstasies and raptures were frequent, and he received great lights there and even prophetic knowledge of absent things and of what had not yet happened. His particular devotions, after the worship and adoration of God, had as their object the Blessed Virgin, whom he always joined to her Son, hardly ever pronouncing the name of Jesus without adding these words: "Son of Mary"; toward the apostle Saint Andrew, because of the very ardent desire he had to suffer for Jesus Christ, and toward Saint Francis of Assisi, because of his great love for poverty. This virtue was also the dearest to Saint Gaetan; he was close to leaving Verona because the bishop treated him too well and more splendidly than religious poverty required. Finally, to sum up all his virtues in one word, he was a man entirely heavenly and who, having almost nothing left on earth, desired and tasted only God alone; thus, one day, during his prayer, it seemed to him that his heart was detaching itself from his chest and flying into heaven.

The needs of the Church, afflicted on all sides by the rebellion of heretics and by bloody wars between Catholic kingdoms, made him redouble his penances and prayers to appease the anger of God ignited against his people. He was further engaged in this by a horrible sedition that arose on the occasion of the inquisition that the Pope and the King of Spain wanted to establish there to stop the course of heresies, but which the people did not want to receive, as it was contrary to their privileges. He therefore had processions held every day and litanies sung where this prayer was added: *Ut civitatem istam defendere, pacificare, custodire, et conservare digneris, te rogamus audi nos*; "Deign, Lord, to defend this city, to pacify it, to protect it, and to preserve it. We beseech you, hear us." Then these words of Daniel were said: *Exaudi, Domine, placare, Domine, attende et fac, ne moreris propter temetipsum, Deus meus, quia nomen tuum invocatum est super civitatem istam et super populum tuum*; "Hear us, Lord, be appeased, Lord, cast an eye of compassion and benevolence upon us, and do what we expect from your goodness. Do not delay, my God, to help us. It concerns your honor and your glory, because your name is invoked upon this city and upon your people."

However, by a secret judgment of divine Providence, the evils, far from diminishing, became more bitter and increased, crimes multiplied; the Council of Trent, which had been assembled to condemn heresies and to reform the morals of Catholics, was transferred because of the plague, and there was almost no appearance that the disorders of Christendom would end soon. These great calamities afflicted Saint Gaetan so much that, being otherwise very weakened by his extraordinary austerities and his continual tears, he fell gravely ill. The doctor, having come to visit him, wanted to have him lie on a mattress: "Me on a soft bed!" said the Saint, "God forbid; I want and I must die on ashes and the cilice. Yes, on ashes and the cilice; it is the least I can do, after Jesus Christ died on a cross, pierced with nails and thorns." He also did not want any consultation to be held for him, saying to the same doctor "that these extraordinary aids were not suitable for a contemptible body like his, and that it was enough for a poor religious to be cared for by a doctor." His children did not abandon him, for fear of losing a single one of his words. He exhorted them to perseverance in the severe poverty of their institute, to apostolic functions for the salvation and sanctification of souls, to close union among themselves, and to the defense of the Church against heretics. Then he humbly asked their forgiveness, although he did not believe he had ever offended any of them either by action or by words, which is very wonderful in a man who had led and governed them for so long. Finally, after having received the three Sacraments with which the Church assists the sick in this extremity, holding a crucifix with both hands which he looked at with an eye full of love and yet bathed in tears, and before which he repeated at every moment these words of Daniel: *Placare, Domine, attende et fac*, he rendered his spirit to God to be crowned with immortal glory, on August 7, 1547, the twenty-third year of the foundation of his Order and the sixty-seventh of his age.

On the day of his death, the troubles of that city were entirely appeased: everyone saw in this a mark of Gaetan's eternal happiness and his great standing in heaven. Since then, God has performed thousands of miracles through the invocation of his name. A person who had devotion to him having implored his assistance, he appeared to her and told her that, to merit being heard, she must say, for nine days, nine times the Pater, the Ave Maria, and the Gloria Patri before his chapel or before one of his images; which she did with very happy success. Subsequently, this devotion has been practiced by a crowd of Christians who have experienced its virtue, and it is still experienced every day, since the wonders that are performed through the intercession of Saint Gaetan are so numerous that it is published everywhere that God pours them out like rain.

The ancient miracles had led Pope Urban VIII to beatify Saint Gaetan in 1629; the new ones led Pope Clement X to canonize him in 1669.

Two years after Gaetan's death, in 1549, Caraffa was named Archbishop of Naples, but the Spaniards prevented him from occupying his see. The same year he obtained the bishopric of Sabina; he attended the conclave of 1550, in which Julius III was elected, and finally, after the twenty-one days of the reign of Marcellus II, Caraffa was elected Pope under the n ame of Paul IV Future pope who collaborated with Jerome in Venice. Paul IV. He donated to his congregation of Theatines the parish church of Saint Sylvester on the Quirinal; later it obtained an even more considerable residence in Rome, the Duchess of Amalfi, Constance Piccolomini, having given him her palace, next to which the Theatines built the magnificent church of Saint Andrea della Valle. Paul IV granted various favors to his congregation, placed superiors in the houses of Venice, Naples, and Rome for five years, and separated, in 1555, the Somascans from the Theatines, who had been united in 1546. In 1557, Paul Consiglieri died, and a year later Boniface de Colle. The ordinance issued by Paul IV for the nomination of superiors did not survive its author, and in 1560 the Clerics Regular decreed in Venice that they would meet in chapter and that the statutes of the chapter would direct the congregation. This resulted in a large number of excellent ordinances that were applied to a crowd of houses born successively, and in a short time, in Padua, Piacenza, Milan, Capua, Cremona, Spoleto, etc., all supervised, starting from 1572, by special visitors. The Theatines also founded six houses in Naples, two in Rome, two in Venice, and spread to Spain, Poland, Germany, and Bavaria. In 1644, they obtained, under the ministry of Cardinal Mazarin, a house in Paris; but it was the only one they possessed in France. They built a church there, the first stone of which was laid by the Prince of Conti in the name of Louis XIV, and they began to perform the office there on November 1, 1669. This beautiful church no longer exists; it was demolished in 1827. Their intrepid missionaries advanced as far as Mingrelia, Georgia, Arabia, Persia, the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, and Armenia.

Besides Pope Paul IV, the Church owed to the congregation of the Theatines a large number of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and learned theologians. One of the glories of the Order was Cardinal Joseph-Marie Tommasi; then Paul Aresi and Clement Galano honored their society; Fathers Jean-Baptiste Tuffo and Joseph de Silos wrote, one in Italian, the other in Latin, the annals of the Order. Father Ventura illustrated the Order in modern times by his eloquent preaching and his prodigious knowledge.

The Order of the Theatines saw its wealth grow and the zeal of its members unfortunately diminish. The statutes of the Theatines are very mild. Their costume consists of the cassock of the Clerics Regular; only they wear white stockings. The Order is not in a very flourishing state; however, it still possesses houses in Naples, Rome, Messina, Palermo, Bologna, and Florence.

Benedict XIV, by a brief of March 20, 1743, gave the Theatines, in perpetuity, a position of consultor of rites, because of the learned commentary that Father Merati had composed on the rubrics, and which is much more extensive than that of Father Gavantus, a Barnabite. It was reprinted in Rome in 1762.

There are usually eight congregations of Clerics Regular in Italy: 1st the Clerics Regular of Saint Paul, called Barnabites, instituted in 1533; 2nd those of the Company of Jesus, instituted in 1540; 3rd those of Saint Maieul or Somascans, instituted in 1530; 4th the Clerics Regular Minor, instituted in 1588; 5th the Clerics Regular Ministers of the Infirm, also called Crucifers, because of the red cross they wear on their cassock, instituted in 1591; 6th the Clerics Regular of the Pious Schools, instituted in 1621; 7th those of the Mother of God, instituted in Lucca in 1628; 8th finally, the true Theatine Clerics Regular according to the first institution. These different congregations have almost the same habit. Father Thomassin says that the life of the Clerics Regular approaches that of the Canons Regular. There is, however, a difference, which is that the ancient canons regular had the fasts, abstinences, night vigils, and silence of monks, whereas the clerics regular embraced in their institute all the functions of ecclesiastical life, and not these great austerities of religious consecrated to solitude.

One Christmas night when, in the Liberian Basilica, Saint Gaetan was meditating on the incarnation, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and placed the Child Jesus in his arms. This is how he is often represented. Romanelli represented him surrounded by nine blessed spirits, one of whom kneels before the Saint, supporting the book on which he writes his constitutions under the dictation of Jesus Christ.

CULT AND RELICS. — WRITINGS.

Saint Gaetan was buried in the common cemetery of Saint Paul, which was collateral to the church. Since then, an underground vault has been made in this church, where his bones were transported with those of the ancient religious. Inscriptions were placed there to preserve the memory of this translation; but it is no longer known precisely where he is located. Thus, it has not been possible to perform the elevation of his body, and his relics cannot be exposed. Devotion to Saint Gaetan is so great in Naples, of which he is one of the principal patrons, that in some churches they preach for nine Sundays or feast days in a row on some virtue of this Saint, to prepare for the celebration of his feast.

In France, Saint Gaetan was especially honored among the Capuchins of Marseille and the Augustinians of Amiens. His statue can be seen with that of Saint Januarius on all the gates of the city of Naples.

We have several letters of Saint Gaetan. Eight are addressed to Laura Mignana, an Augustinian nun of Brescia; they were printed in the History of the monastery of these Augustinian nuns, which appeared in Brescia in 1764. The others are found in the Historical Memoirs on the life of the Saint, by Father Zinelli. These Memoirs were printed in Venice in 1553.

The nuns of Brescia parted with almost all the originals of the Saint's letters in favor of several Theatine houses, which placed them in reliquaries.

To complete Father Giry, we have used the continuators of Godescard, and the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Catholic Theology, by Goschler. — Cf. Esprit des Saints, by Abbé Grimes; the different lives of the Saint given in Italy, and whose catalog can be found in the Bollandists; two other lives written in Latin, one by Father Antoine Caraccioli, and printed in Cologne in 1612, in-4°; the other by Father Jean-Baptiste Caraccioli, and published in Pisa in 1738; the lives of the same Saint written in French by Charpi de Sainte-Croix; and by Father Bernard, a Theatine; Hillyot, Hist. des ordres relig.; Oxynalibus, Cantin. Baron. ed. Luc. ad an. 1547; Father de Tracy, in his lives of Saint Gaetan and the other Saints of the same Order.