Vigils Reading – St Cajetan

ST CAJETAN

From the writing of Alban Butler1

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St Cajetan was son of Caspar, Count of Thiene, of the nobility of Vicenza,

where he was born in 1480. Two years later his father was killed, fighting for

the Venetians against King Ferdinand of Naples. Cajetan went for four years to

Padua University, where he distinguished himself in theology, and took the

degree of doctor in civil and canon law in 1504. He then returned to his native

town, of which he was made senator. In pursuance of his resolve to serve God

as a priest he received the tonsure. In 1506 he went to Rome. Soon after his

arrival Pope Julius II conferred on him the office of protonotary… On the death

of Julius Cajetan refused his successor’s request to continue in that office, and

devoted three years to preparing himself for the priesthood. He was ordained

in 1516, being thirty-three years old, and returned to Vicenza in 1518.

Cajetan had re-founded a confraternity in Rome called “The Oratory of

the Divine Love”, which was an association of zealous and devout clerics who

devoted themselves to labor with all their power to promote God’s honor and

the welfare of souls… but consisted only of men in the lowest station of life. This

circumstance gave great offence to his friends, who thought it a reflection on

the honor of his family. He persisted, however, and sought out the sick and the

poor throughout the whole town, served them and cared for those who suffered

from the most loathsome diseases in the hospital of the incurables. He founded

a similar oratory at Verona and then went in 1520 to Venice where he took up

his lodgings in the new hospital of that city… He introduced exposition of the

Blessed Sacrament in that city, as well as continuing the promotion of frequent

communion.

The state of Christendom at this time shocked and distressed Cajetan, and

in 1523 he went back to Rome to confer with his friends of the Oratory of Divine

Love. They agreed that little could be done other than by reviving in the clergy

the spirit and zeal of those holy pastors who first planted the faith, and a plan

was formed for instituting an order of regular clergy upon the model of the lives

of the Apostles. The first associates of Cajetan were John Peter Caraffa, who

later became pope under the name of Paul IV. The institute was approved by

Clement VII, and Caraffa was chosen as the first provost general. From the

name of his episcopal see of Theatensis these clerks regular came to be

distinguished from others as Theatines.

The success of the new congregation was not immediate, and in 1527,

when it still numbered only a dozen members, the army of Emperor Charles V

sacked Rome. The Theatines house was demolished and the members had to

escape to Venice. Cajetan was sent to Verona, where both the clergy and the

laity were opposing the reformation of discipline, which their bishop was

endeavoring to introduce among them. A general improvement was the fruit of

his example, preaching and labors.

Worn out with trying to appease civil strife in Naples, and disappointed

at the suspension of the Council of Trent, from which he hoped so much for the

Church’s good, Cajetan had to take to his bed in the summer of 1547. The end

came on Sunday, August 7. Many miracles wrought by his intercession were

approved at Rome after rigorous scrutiny, and he was canonized in 1671.