Saint Cajetan was one of the great reformers of the Church during the period of the Reformation.
He was born in October 1480 into a noble family. He received a rigorous education guided by his mother. He lost his father in childhood itself. His mother took care of him and given education in canon and civil law led him to work as a jurist in the court of Pope Julius II, which he abandoned upon the Pope’s death, in order to study for the priesthood.
He was ordained at the age of 36 and founded a community of priests, who lived a monastic form of poverty and prayer and lived and worked closely with the poor in order to combat the political and spiritual corruption of the times. The Congregation of Clerks Regular, which was popularly called the Theatines was his order. After the title of one of his companions, Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, the Bishop of Chieti (Theate in Latin), who later was elected Pope Paul IV.
He practiced charity constantly as he is more concerned about the poor. He took initiation to found institutions such as a hospital for those with incurable diseases. He even founded a bank for the poor in order to lend money to them without the usual high interest charged by other money lenders.
In 1533 he founded one of his order’s houses in Naples where he battled against the growth of the Lutheran heresy. He died on August 6th, 1547, the feast of the Transfiguration. This occurred in Naples when the city was still in serious spiritual, political, and social trouble.
Saint Cajetan was canonized by Clement X in 1671.