Saint Cajetan

Saint Cajetan of Thiene was an Italian priest who gave up a career in the papal Curia to serve the incurably sick and to renew the life of the clergy. Together with Gian Pietro Carafa he founded the first order of clerics regular, known as the Theatines. His memorial falls on August 7.

He was born in October 1480 in Vicenza, into the noble family of the counts of Thiene. In Padua he earned a doctorate in both laws, canon and civil. He then went to Rome, where under the pontificates of Julius II and Leo X he worked in the Curia as a writer of papal letters, with the rank of protonotary apostolic.

There he joined the Oratory of Divine Love, a confraternity that combined prayer with service to the sick. He himself cared for the incurably sick in the Roman hospital of Saint James. In 1516 he was ordained a priest. In his native Vicenza he founded a new hospital, and in Venice he worked in the great hospital for the incurably sick and personally served the victims of the plague. He used to say that souls are purified not by the fervor of feelings but by the fervor of deeds.

He wished to renew the Church, beginning with the clergy. On September 14, 1524, at the tomb of Saint Peter in the Vatican, he made his religious vows together with Gian Pietro Carafa, Bishop of Chieti and later Pope Paul IV, and two other companions. Thus was born the order of clerics regular approved by Clement VII. From Teate, the Latin name of Chieti, they were called Theatines. Following the example of the first community in Jerusalem, they gave up their property; with no fixed income and without begging, they lived on voluntary offerings, entrusting themselves to Providence.

In 1527, during the Sack of Rome, soldiers seized Cajetan and tortured him, believing he was hiding riches. The bull of canonization relates that the imprisoned religious joyfully sang hymns of praise, and that a Spanish officer, moved by this, obtained their release. The Theatines took refuge in Venice. In 1533 Cajetan became the head of a new house in Naples. He refused the estates and fixed revenues offered to the community, and to those who doubted that the people of Naples would prove as generous as the Venetians, he replied that the God of Venice is also the God of Naples. There he served the poor and the incurably sick.

He died in Naples on August 7, 1547, worn out by work and illness and grieved by the bloody unrest in the city. John Paul II recalled that, according to the unanimous account of his biographers, in his last days he offered his life to God for peace in Naples. The people of Naples have venerated him for centuries as one of the patrons of their city. Urban VIII beatified him in 1629, and Clement X canonized him on April 12, 1671.

Because of his trust in God’s Providence, he is called the saint of Providence. His cult is especially alive in Argentina: as Pope Francis recalled, on the day of his memorial crowds of faithful in Buenos Aires pray to him as the patron of bread and work.