Saint of the day August 7: Saint Cajetan. Catholic Saints

Every August 7, the Catholic Church celebrates Saint Cajetan (1480-1504), patron of bread and work.

“In the oratory we pay God the homage of adoration, in the hospital we meet him personally,” this noble man, also known as “the saint of Providence,” used to say.

Spirituality versus frivolity

Cajetan of Thiene – by his given name – was an Italian priest, founder of the Order of Regular Clerics, whose members call themselves Theatines. He was born in Vicenza (Italy) on October 1, 1480, and died in Naples on August 7, 1547. He studied at the University of Padua where he obtained, in 1504, the double doctorate, in civil and canon law.

After finishing his studies, Cajetan moved to Rome, where he was appointed apostolic prothonotary of Pope Julius II. While at the service of the Pope, he participated in the Fifth Lateran Council. When the Pontiff died in 1513, Cajetan left courtly life and began to prepare for the priesthood. He was ordained a few years later, when he was 35.

At that time he founded the “Oratory of Divine Love” (1516), an institution very similar to other oratories – made up of clerics and lay people -. The oratories emerged as a response to the frivolity into which many members of the Church had fallen, calling the faithful to gather together for the practice of prayer and fraternity.

Reformer of the clergy

In 1518, Cajetan returned to Vicenza, his hometown. When his mother died, he dedicated himself fully to founding and directing hospitals specialized in incurable patients – mostly syphilis – in cities such as Verona, Vicenza and Venice.

In 1524, he founded the ‘Order of the Theatines’ (or Clerics Regular) in Rome together with Bishop Juan Pedro Caraffa (1476-1559), who would later be elected Pope under the name of Paul IV. The Theatine Regular Clerics sought the renewal of the Church in general, but especially that of the clergy; They also proposed to renew the preaching of doctrine, the care of the sick and the restoration of the frequent use of the sacraments.

Cajetan, after being tortured at the hands of Charles V’s troops during the sack of Rome in 1527, was transferred to Venice, from where he dedicated himself to the direction of the Order he founded. In 1533, he was sent to Naples, where he would die years later. It was during this period that Cajetan – by encouraging devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, assistance to the poor and sick, and the renewal of the regular clergy – would forever mark the history of the Neapolitan people, awakening the affection and devotion that until today he professes to him.

Reform without rupture

Saint Cajetan was a man of great apostolic ardor and concern. Already from his years in Venice he expressed: “I will not be satisfied until I see Christians approach the heavenly banquet with the simplicity of hungry and joyful children, and not full of fear and false shame.”

Being a contemporary of Luther and having learned of the dangers of the Protestant “Reformation,” he did not miss the opportunity to encourage and flourish an authentic renewal of life and customs within the Church, without the need to attack its unity, as they did. the Protestants. For this reason, he always supported creative, interesting and innovative initiatives.

Venice and Saint Jerome Emiliani

One of the initiatives that Cajetan promoted was the one carried out during the time he spent in Venice, when he supported Jerome Emiliani – at that time a member of the Oratory of Divine Love – to found another order of regular clerics: the Order of the Somascan Fathers . Emiliani worked in the so-called Hospital of the Incurables and was a Venetian nobleman who, after an adventurous youth, decided, in 1531, to dedicate himself to the poor and orphans as a layman. Saint Jerome Emiliani was canonized in 1767 and later declared the universal patron of orphans and abandoned youth.

Naples and Blessed John Marinoni

During the years in Naples, Saint Cajetan organized and founded more hospices for the elderly and hospitals. And not only that: together with Blessed Juan Marinoni he created the “Montes de Piedad”, a charity organization to financially help the poorest and combat the usurers of the time. That charity would become what is today the Bank of Naples.

At the end of his days and being very ill, Saint Cajetan did not fail to bear witness to the intense piety that moved him. The doctors, considering his ailments, recommended that he put a mattress on his plank bed, to which the Saint responded: “My Savior died on the cross; So let me also die on a tree.”

Saint Cajetan in America: Argentina

Pope Francis professes a special affection for Saint Cajetan, as do the Argentine people. In the Pope’s message to the faithful of Saint Cajetan in 2013, Francis proposed the saint as a model of what a “culture of encounter” should be, that is, a culture in which we encounter Jesus in a personal way to generate that “encounter” with others, “in which we recognize that there is someone more than me, who needs more than me… that is going out to meet those most in need”; just as Saint Cajetan did.

In Argentina, the most famous temple in honor of this saint is located in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Liniers (Buenos Aires). It is a place of pilgrimage for his devotees. There the faithful, every year, ask the Saint that they do not lack bread and work, and they thank him for his intercession.

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If you want to know more about Saint Cajetan, we suggest this article from the Catholic Encyclopedia: https://ec.aciprensa.com/wiki/San_Cayetano.

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