Saint Cajetan

Gaetano dei Conti di Thiene (6 October 1480 – 7 August 1547), known in English as Saint Cajetan, was an Italian priest and founder of the Theatine Order of Clerics Regular. In 1671, he was proclaimed a saint by Pope Clement X. He is known as the Saint of Providence and the Patron Saint of bread and work.^[1]

Gaetano was born in Vicenza on October 1, 1480. He belonged to the family of the Counts of Thiene. He was the last of three sons of Count Gasparo di Thiene (a military man who died in 1492) and Countess Maria da Porto, who later became a Dominican tertiary.^[2]

He was named Gaetano in honor of a recently deceased uncle, a canon professor of law at the University of Padua, who was born in Gaeta (a coastal town 70 km southeast of Rome).^[3]

In 1504, Gaetano obtained a double doctorate in civil and canon law from the University of Thiene. In 1506, at the age of 25, thanks to his uncles' connections, he was appointed protonotary apostolic at the court of Pope Julius II in Rome.

From that position, he helped reconcile the Holy See with the Republic of Venice. He retired from court life in 1513 and founded a society of priests and prelates called the Oratory of Divine Love. He was ordained a priest two years later, at the age of 35.

Gaetano was convinced that the Church needed to fight the Reformation and serve the poor. Therefore, the founding of the Clerics Regular aimed to renew the spirit and missionary work of priests.

This order was called the Theatines, after the Latin name of the city of Chieti (Theate), the city of which Caraffa was bishop. Their rule was to possess nothing and beg nothing. They were to live solely on the alms offered to them spontaneously by the faithful.

With a special apostolic charisma, Gaetano played games with the male parishioners, betting on prayers, wooden rosaries, devotional candles, or services and manual labor in the church.

His emblem is the apparition of the Virgin Mary. He died on August 7, 1547, while the superior of his order in Naples. His relics are in the Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore in Naples.

Thiene was beatified on October 8, 1629, by Pope Urban VIII, and canonized on April 12, 1671, by Pope Clement X. The feast day of Saint Cajetan is celebrated by the Catholic Church on August 7.

He is the patron saint of administrative managers, as well as job seekers and the unemployed, and is called the Father of Providence or Father of Providence He is also the patron saint of bread.