This co-founder of the Adorno Fathers was born Ascanio dei Caracciolo Pisquizi, in the kingdom of Naples in the year 1563, just as the Protestant revolt was reaching its crescendo. Italy was largely spared its ravages, although other problems assailed the Church, which is semper reformanda est – always in need of reform. Ascanio was chosen by God to lead that reform. As a young boy, he was afflicted with a serious and near-fatal, skin condition. He prayed that if he were cured, he would devote his life to God – and cured he was, apparently miraculously.
So Ascanio began studies for the priesthood, and was ordained in 1590. A letter intended for another priest by accident was delivered to him, urging the founding of a new religious order of priests. Father Ascanio took this as a sign, and so helped found a new order, of the ‘Clerics Regular Minor’, who besides the three vows of religion, took a fourth vow of never seeking dignities within or outside the Order.
They were also one of the most ascetical ways of life in the Church – with perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament by rotation, along with rotating penances – one member taking the discipline, another fasting on bread and water, another wearing the hair shirt.
Father Ascanio adopted the name ‘Francis’, in honour of the saint, and devoted the rest of his life to the work of his Order – not least adoring, preaching and hearing confession. He would spend whole nights before the tabernacle, repeating ‘zeal for thy house has consumed me!’. When they exhumed his apparently incorrupt body after his death, these words were found inscribed around his heart (!).
His blessings would result in miraculous healings; he could read souls and hearts; and he converted we know not how many. For eight years (1593 – 1601) he was appointed Superior General of his order, and in the midst of it all, he kept up his regular chores, sweeping, cooking (he is patron saint of Italian cooks).
Worn out by his intense life, Father Francis died at the age of 44 on this June 4th in 1608, his final words were to exclaim, ‘Let us go! Let us go to heaven!’. Would that we could all say the same in our final moments. But I fear – at least in my own case – that our compromise with the world will entail, shall we say, a more circuitous route. Would that we could all have but a smidgen of the zeal of Father Francis Caraciollo! What a Church and world this might be!
Father Caraciollo was canonized by Pope Pius VII – the one who stood against Napoleon – on May 24, 1807. We can but pray that his example be more widely known, and his intercession mor fully sought.
Saint Francis Caraciollo, ora pro nobis!
