Francis Caracciolo - Biography

Biography

St Francis Caracciolo was born in Villa Santa Maria in the Abruzzo region, in the Kingdom of Naples. He belonged to the Pisquizio branch of the Caracciolo family and received in baptism the name of Ascanio. From his infancy, he had a reputation for gentleness and uprightness. He vowed himself to an ecclesiastical life, and distributing his goods to the poor, went to Naples in 1585 to study theology. In 1587 he was ordained priest and joined the confraternity of the Bianchi della Giustizia (The White Robes of Justice), whose object was to assist condemned criminals to die holy deaths.

A letter from Giovanni Agostino Adorno to another Caracciolo, Fabrizio, begging him to take part in founding a new religious institute, was delivered by mistake to the newly ordained priest, and he saw in this circumstance an assurance of the Divine Will towards him (1588). He assisted in drawing up rules for the new congregation, which was approved by Pope Sixtus V, July 1, 1588, and confirmed by Pope Gregory XIV on February 18, 1591, and reconfirmed by Pope Clement VIII on June 1, 1592.

The institute founded thereby, named the Congregation of the Minor Clerks Regular (the "Adorno Fathers"), is both contemplative and active. To the three usual vows a fourth is added, namely, that its members must not aspire to ecclesiastical dignities outside the order nor seek them within it. Perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is kept up by rotation, and self-mortification is practised. The motto of the order "Ad majorem Resurgentis gloriam" ("to the greater glory of the Risen One") was chosen because Francis and Augustine Adorno made their profession at Naples on Low Sunday, April 9, 1589.

In spite of his refusal Francis Caracciolo was chosen general on March 9, 1593, in the first house of the congregation in Naples, called St. Mary Major or Pietrasanta, given to the congregation by Sixtus V. He made three journeys to Spain to establish foundations under the protection of kings Philip II and Philip III. He opened the house of the Holy Ghost at Madrid on January 20, 1599, that of Our Lady of the Annunciation at Valladolid on September 9, 1601, and that of St. Joseph at Alcalá sometime in 1601, for teaching science. In Rome he obtained possession of St. Leonard's Church, which he afterwards exchanged for that of Sant'Agnese in Agone, September 18, 1598, and later he secured for the institute the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina (June 11, 1606) which was made over to him by a papal bull of Pope Paul V, which was, however, annulled by the bull "Susceptum" of Pope Pius X (November 9, 1906).

St Francis Caracciolo was the author of "Le sette stazioni sopra la Passione di N.S. Gesù Christo" (The Seven Stations of the Passion of Our Lord, Rome, 1710). He loved the poor. Like Saint Thomas Aquinas, a relative on his mother's side, his purity was angelic, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. Pope Paul V desired to confer an important bishopric on him, but he steadfastly refused it. His frequent motto was "Zelus domus tuae comedit me." Invited by the Oratorians at Agnone, in the Molise region, to convert their house into a college for his congregation, he fell ill during the negotiations and died there on the Vigil of Corpus Christi, Wednesday, June 4, 1608.