Feast day: June 4

St. Francis Caracciolo

Priest, Founder · 1563–1608

Patron of Naples

An Italian nobleman, cured of a disfiguring illness, who founded an order combining active ministry with perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Francis Caracciolo was born in 1563 into a noble family of the Abruzzi in Italy, related to the great house of Caracciolo. As a young man he was stricken with a disfiguring skin disease, thought to be a form of leprosy; on his unexpected recovery he vowed to give his life entirely to God, and went to Naples to study for the priesthood.

A letter changed his course. A proposal to found a new religious order, addressed to another man named Caracciolo, was delivered to Francis by mistake — and he took the coincidence as a sign of God's will. Joining with the priest John Augustine Adorno, he helped found the Minor Clerks Regular, a congregation devoted to preaching, the care of prisoners, and perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

To the usual vows the new order added a fourth, never to seek any ecclesiastical office, and its members took turns in unbroken adoration before the Eucharist. Francis, chosen superior against his will, was famous for his own long hours of prayer before the tabernacle and his deep humility, calling himself 'the great sinner.'

He travelled to spread the order through Italy and Spain, wearing himself out in its service, and died in 1608, only forty-four. Canonized in 1807, he is honoured as a patron of the city of Naples.

His order kept the Eucharist watched in unbroken adoration, the brothers taking turns day and night — a practice he carried to his own death.

Image: Uncertain (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/06218a.htm