The Post-

Reformation
Religious Orders
ESTABLISHMENT AND FOUNDATION OF THE ORDER OF CLERICS
REGULAR MINOR (ADORNO FATHERS AND BROTHERS)
The Protestant Reformation and
the Counter-Reformation
 Notwithstanding the opposing efforts of heretics and of statesmen who were
inimical to the Church, not withstanding also the resistance made by some
depraved clergymen and laymen, the true reformation of the Church in her
Head and members, which was inaugurated at the Council of Trent, was
gradually carried into effect in Catholic countries.
 The moral and religious regeneration of their contemporaries is due to the
numerous members of the clergy and laity who were distinguished for
learning and virtue, and whose work was essentially forwarded by the new
and religious orders and by the saints of the age.
 All the true reformers recognized, as a chief means of attaining
their end, the necessity of a moral and religious training for the
clergy, of thorough instruction for the people, of the cultivation of a
genuine religious life in high and low, and especially of the frequent
of the Sacraments.
 The work of reform began soon after the public appearance of
Luther, and made a peculiarly good progress under Pope Paul III
who invited the most eminent men to his court in order to have a
plan of reform drawn up by them and who for the same purpose
convoked the Council of Trent.
Reform of Orders and
Establishments of New Ones
 Among those who took an active part in the great struggle against heresy
and the moral depravity of the times, were the members of the newly
founded orders and congregations
 They take possession not only of pulpits and confessionals, but also of
professional chairs at universities and seminaries, strove, by writing
learned works, popular books of devotion, and catechisms, by prayer, and
by the practice of works of Christian love to one’s neighbor, to renew,
alike in the palaces of the nobility, in the houses of middle classes, and in
the hovels of the poor, the fervor and piety that characterize Christianity,
and by inflaming the hearts of that are too much given to earthly
considerations to direct them to higher views.
 The Augustinians were reformed by their general, Egidio Canisio, who
had been an outstanding scholar at the Lateran Council.

 The Dominicans and Franciscans attempted to revive the order of

according to its old rules and its primitive spirit.

 The Reform of the Carmelites in Spain under Saint Teresa of Jesus

and Saint John of the Cross. In 1567, Saint Teresa and Saint john met
and persuaded the young man to devote his energies to reforming the
Carmelite houses for men.
The Jesuits and the Capuchins

 Among these congregations, those of the Jesuits and Capuchins

are the most renowned; mutually assisting one another, they were
successful alike in refuting heresy and in renewing religious fervor
among the Catholics.
 The Society of Jesus or the Jesuits was founded by Saint
Ignatius of Loyola and was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540. Its
constitution differs in many points from the rule of the earlier
orders. They added a fourth vow which is the unconditional
obedience to the Holy See with regard to mission.
 The Order of Capuchins bestowed its care and attention in tending souls
of the lower classes of society.
 It developed as a reform within a reform of the Franciscan Order.
 They spread rapidly because it appealed to the neglected poor of Italy.
 They were largely responsible for checking the progress of the
Protestant Revolt throughout northern Italy and across the Tyrol region
into southern Germany. They did much to raise the tone of religious life
among the lower classes in Italy. They worked among the poor, in the
Franciscan tradition, and thus they complemented the work of the
Jesuits which was directed toward the wealthier and more influential
classes of Christendom.
Other Religious Orders of the Era

 The age of the so-called Reformation was very prolific in religious

societies, which in course of time came to be acknowledged by
the Church as separate congregations or orders.
There are religious congregations
and orders which devoted
themselves to the education and
the literary and scientific training
of the clergy, together with the
holding of missions for the
people.
Theatines

 Founded by St. Cajetan of Thiene and

Peter Caraffa, Bishop of Chieti in 1524
and approved by Clement VII.
 Took care of the sick and asked no alms
but lived on the “providence of God,” –
that is, on the contributions freely
brought to their convents.
Barnabites

 Founded on 1530, They were austere

preachers of penance who at the same
time took charge of the seminaries for
the priesthood.
Oratorians of St.
Philip Neri
 Approved by Pope Gregory XIII in 1574
and those of Cardinal de Beruelle in
France, which congregation was
sanctioned by Paul V in 1613.
 Both the Barnabites and the Oratorians
have great renown by their learning
and their scientific attainments.
Unfortunately, many French Oratorians
inclined to Jansenism
Lazarists

 Also called the Priests of the Mission of

St. Vincent de Paul, from the year 1624
have effected more good than even the
Oratorians in missionary work and in
educating secular priests.
 Pope Urban VIII, in 1632 approved
them as a congregation.
Redemptorists and
Passionists
 Also known as the Congregation of the
Most Holy Redeemer which was
founded by St. Alphonsus Liguori,
Bishop of St. Agatha of Goti in 1732.
 Classed among the most prominent
missionaries. In the 19th century they
have extended their labors beyond
Italy.
 The Passionists of Saint Paul of the
Cross also devoted themselves to the
missionary work.
There were also those which
devoted themselves to the
instruction of the Youth
 The Congregation of the Oblates of
Saint Ambrose: Founded in 1578 by St.
Charles Borromeo who also occupied
themselves in the care of souls
 The Hieronymites or Samaschans:
Founded from the year 1526 by the
Venetian nobleman, St. Jerome
Emiliani, who were principally devoted
to the care of the orphans
 The Fathers of the Christian Doctrine of Caesar de
Bus (1592)
 Congregation of the Brothers of the Christian
Schools, founded in 1680 by Saint John Baptists
de la Salle
 Fathers of the Pious Schoos, or Piarists, of Saint
Josephn Calasanz.
 The Ursuline Nuns, founded by Saint Angela
Merici in Brescia, which were devoted to the
education of young girls
 Order of the Visitation of our Blessed Lady,
founded in 1618 by St. Francis de Sales and St.
Frances de Chantal, the original and principal
object of which was, however, tending the sick.
 The Brothers of Mercy, founded by Saint John of
God and recognized as a religious order by Paul V
in 1617.
 The Bethlehemites, the Sisters of Mercy of St.
Vincent de Paul and the Widow Le Gras, whose
rule was confirmed by Pope Clement IX in 1668
 Sisters of Saint Charles Borromeo, whom the
Cistercian abbot Epiphanius Louis de Estival gave
a rule of life, devoted themselves to the care of
the sick.
 The Sisters of the Good Shepherd take care of the
fallen women.
 The Nuns of the Adoration were founded for the
continual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Clerics Regular
Minor
(Adorno Fathers)

Foundation and
Establishment
 The Order was founded through the
initiatives of three saintly people:
 Saint Francis Caracciolo
 Ven. Augustine Adorno
 Fr. Fabrizio Caracciolo
 The foundation of the Order of the Clerics
Regular Minor was founded during the
period after the Council of Trent. The
founders felt strongly the ideals of the
Catholic Reform.
 The Order of the Clerics Regular Minor (Adorno Fathers)
came into existence in the 16th century and was one of
several approved by the Church, before and after the
Council of Trent, under the general name of Clerics
Regular. The first inspiration to establish the new Religious
Order came to the Genoese, Augustine Adorno, who in the
city of Naples, found another collaborators: Fabrizio
Caracciolo and Francis Caracciolo. With them, he wrote a
Rule and presented it to the Pope, Sixtus V, who approved
it in 1588.
 Even though our three men came from geographical,
social and religious backgrounds, they brought together a
common desire to reform their lives, and they shared the
vision to renew the Church in the aftermath of the
Protestant Reformation. In starting a new Institute about
25 years after the Council of Trent had officially closed
and more than half a century after the Theatines, the
Jesuits and a number of other Institutes had been
established, our Founders drafted laws based on what
they had seen and what they felt would bring a deeper
renewal in the Church.
 For them, certain elements of spirituality, present in
ancient Institutes, needed to be taken up again and re-
expressed in the Clerics Regular. Our Father Adorno, in
particular, claimed a revelation from God about this and
became convinced that his Order was to take the best
from other Institutes and be a kind of compendium of all
of them. Accordingly, he and the other two Founders,
examined well other Religious Orders before moving on
their own. From them they took what they felt was more
important. In this they followed the Apostle Paul: Set
your hearts on the greater gifts (1 Cor.12:31).
 Their new Congregation was to be more ascetic and
contemplative than the other Clerics Regular by
stressing and practicing more prolonged times of prayer,
such as the obligation of the Liturgy of the Hours in
common, the centrality of the Eucharist in their
apostolate and the importance of penance and restraint
in one’s life. In the original petitions to the Holy See, our
Founders spoke of contemplation and worship as being
the principal occupations of the Institute. They did not
reject the works of the apostolate, but they preferred
pure times of prayer, a view which needed to be
stressed in the busy post Tridentine Church.
 Because Augustine Adorno died early, only three years after
the Order had been approved, and because Fabrizio Caracciolo
did not make his religious Profession but after several years,
the task of guiding the new religious family, of forming its first
members, of clarifying the Rule, and of seeing the Institute
increasing and expanding, fell upon Francis Caracciolo. He was
the first elected Superior General and lived long enough to
see the Order well established in Italy and in Spain. He died on
June 4, 1608 at the age of 45 on the vigil of Corpus Christi –
the feast of the Eucharist, which Francis prescribed as central
in the spirit and the apostolate of the Order.
 He was proclaimed a Saint by Pope Pius VII on May 24, 1807.
The process of canonization, which took almost 200 years,
marked also a time of great witnessing and growth for the
Institute. By the middle of the 18th century, the Order had
grown into five Provinces (3 in Italy and 2 in Spain) and about
50 communities with a total membership between 700 to 800.
The Order worked in parishes and taught in Colleges and
universities. It had consulters in various Congregations of the
Holy See, and some of its members were given special and
delicate assignments in the Far East to investigate and report
on the difficult controversies of the Malabarian Rites. Others,
like Nicola Tomacelli, reached as far as the Court of the
Emperor of China in Peking.
 Unfortunately, the next century dealt a
serious blow to all religious Orders and to
the Clerics Regular Minor in particular.
Napoleon, the Revolutions and Europe
Nationalistic spirit of the time contributed to
a general disarray and deterioration. Many
houses were suppressed, a number of
members were secularized, and entire
Provinces disappeared. With the coming of
the 20th century,
 However, the Order has experienced a
remarkable recovery. Its presence has
widened and diversified for what it does and
where it operates. Today it is present in
several places in Italy, especially those which
remind it of its Founders. It has lost the
traces of its one time glorious presence in
Spain, but Divine Providence has called it in
other countries: in the United States, in
Germany and in the heart of the African
continent, the Republic of Congo, where it
operates the mission as well as two houses
of formation. Just this past year, the Order
has opened a new House of Formation in
Nairobi, Kenya, staffed totally by our African
priests.
 The Order is not an Institute specifically
missionary. In the course of four centuries never
was a house opened for the pastoral service ad
gentes, but the Second Vatican Council and the
solicitations of the Popes inviting all religious
Orders to a new re-evangelization of the world,
have matured in us the decision to open
ourselves to the missions not only in Africa, but
also in Southern India, where we have built our
seminaries with a good number of candidates
currently in training in Mallikassery, Kerala and
Bangalore, Karnatika.
 March 1, 2002 marked also the official
beginning of our presence in the
Philippines. Following an invitation by
Bishop Benjamin J. Almoneda, we went to
the Diocese of Daet with the
understanding of using the academic
diocesan facilities of Holy Trinity College
Seminary. We took up residence
temporarily on the campus of Holy Trinity,
while our House of Formation was being
built in Vinzons, Camarines Norte. Today
the seminary there is in full operation. We
have about 25 College seminarians and
four novices.
 If we look at the difficult journey of our Order
in more than four centuries, we must
acknowledge as true the tradition of a promise
made by the Blessed Mother to Father Adorno:
that the Institute would be under her special
protection. It must have been her maternal
hand that has spared us from shipwreck. We
want to be worthy of this special protection of
Mary, and, in the renewed will of fidelity to the
charism of the Founders, we feel sustained by
the friendship and charity of so many people,
who praise and thank the Lord with us for all
that He has granted us in the past, and we
want to implore His benevolence on our future.
Resources

History of the Catholic Church

 Brueck, Heinrich, History of the Catholic Church, 1885.
History of the Catholic Church
 Neil, Raymond et al., History of the Catholic Church, 1957.
History of the Clerics Regular Minor by Nicholas Capetola, CRM:
 https://www.adornofathers.org/about-us/