Saint Francis Caracciolo

Priest and Founder
(1563–1608)

Saint Francis Caracciolo was born on October 13, 1563, at Villa Santa Maria in the Abruzzi region of Italy. He came from a noble Neapolitan family related to Saint Thomas Aquinas. At the age of twenty-two he was stricken with a disease resembling leprosy, and during this trial he vowed that if God restored his health he would consecrate his life entirely to His service. He recovered completely and, true to his vow, went to Naples to study theology.

Ordained a priest in 1587, Francis joined a confraternity of priests devoted to the care of prisoners and those condemned to death. A mistaken letter addressed to him instead of a priest of the same name led to an extraordinary turn of events: the letter was an invitation to co-found a new religious congregation. Francis saw in this mistake the hand of divine providence, and together with John Augustine Adorno he founded the Congregation of Minor Clerks Regular, known as the Adorno Fathers or Caraccioline Fathers, in 1588.

The congregation was dedicated to perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, to missionary work, and to the care of prisoners. Francis himself had an extraordinary devotion to the Eucharist and spent many hours in adoration each day, often seen in ecstasy before the tabernacle. Though elected superior general three times, he always sought the lowest offices and lived in great poverty and mortification.

He died on June 4, 1608, at Agnone in the Molise, worn out by his austerities at the age of forty-four. Pope Pius VII canonized him in 1807. His feast is kept on June 4.