Saint Francis Caracciolo

Ascanio Caracciolo was born in Villa Santa Maria, in Abruzzo, on October 13, 1563, the son of Don Ferrante Caracciolo, lord of the town, and Isabella Barattucci. He received the education that befitted a nobleman. At twenty-two he fell ill: a disease that disfigured his face, perhaps leprosy. He promised that if he recovered he would become a priest. He recovered, and he kept his promise: he went to Naples, took up his studies again, and began reading Thomas Aquinas. Once ordained, he celebrated his first Mass in 1587. In Naples he looked after the poor and the sick, and joined the Company of the Bianchi — the confraternity that assisted prisoners and walked the condemned all the way to the scaffold. It was, and has remained, one of the hardest things a person could do in that city. Then came a letter addressed to someone else. Giovanni Agostino Adorno, a Genoese, was looking for companions for a new order and had written to another Caracciolo; the letter went to Ascanio by mistake, and he read it and said yes. From that wrong address were born the Clerics Regular Minor, the Caracciolini. When he made his vows, Ascanio took the name Francis, in honor of the saint of Assisi. He died in Agnone on June 4, 1608, at forty-four. Pius VII proclaimed him a saint in 1807. He is a co-patron of Naples. If your name is Francis, today is your name day — though many wait for the fourth of October.