Vigils Reading – St Cajetan

ST CAJETAN

From the writings of Alban Butler2

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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