Saint Cajetan and the Sack of Rome

Today is the feast of Saint Cajetan, a saint of the Catholic Reformation and the co-founder of the Theatines. He was in Rome when the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's troops sacked the city. As Father Alban Butler explains:

The army of the Emperor Charles V., which was commanded by the constable Bourbon, who had deserted from the French king to the emperor, marched from the Milanese to Rome, and took that city by assault on the 6th of May, 1527. This Duke of Bourbon, after having committed horrible outrages, was killed by a musket shot in mounting the wall; but Philibert of Challons, prince of Orange, took upon him the command of the army, which was composed in a great measure of Lutherans, and other enemies of the see of Rome. The pope and cardinals retired into the castle of St. Angelo; but the German army plundered the city, and were guilty of greater cruelties and excesses than had been committed by the Goths a thousand years before. The house of the Theatins (sic) was rifled, and almost demolished; and a soldier, who had known St. Cajetan at Vicenza before he renounced the world, falsely imagining he was then rich, gave an information to his officer against him to that effect; whereupon he was barbarously scourged and tortured to extort from him a treasure which he had not. Being at length discharged, though in a weak and maimed condition, he and his companions left Rome, with nothing but their breviaries under their arms, and with clothes barely to cover themselves. They repaired to Venice, where they were kindly received, and settled in the convent of St. Nicholas of Tolentino.

Saint Cajetan and the Theatines were dedicated to renewal and reform in the Catholic Church after the divisions of the Protestant Reformation, according to this biography from ETWN:

When his dream was about to be forged of bringing to ecclesial reform the figure of the cleric regular, knowing the important role of the priest, he wrote to his family: “For some time Christ has been calling me and inviting me, because of his kindness, to take part in his kingdom. And he makes me see more clearly every day that we cannot serve two masters, the world and Christ. I see Christ poor, and myself rich, He is mocked and I am a guest of honor, He is suffering, and I am delighting. I am dying to take a step towards meeting Him.” An insistent prayer arose from the depth of his being: that God would grant him the grace of finding three or four persons prepared to live the Gospel’s radicalism to introduce the reform the Church needed at that time. And he received the answer in the persons of Caraffa (later Pope Paul IV), Boniface of Colle and Paul Consiglieri. They were the first members of his foundation born with the evangelical spirit: “seek first of all the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all the rest will be given to you in great measure.” Approved by Clement VII in 1524, it had in Caraffa its first superior general.

After what he had endured in Rome during its Sack, he became superior general of the Theatines:

They were sent to Venice. In 1530 Cajetan was elected superior general, until three year later when Caraffa was again his superior and sent him to Verona, where he suffered the opposition of a great part of the clergy and the faithful. From there he went to Naples in 1533 and founded another House. His charity, fervor and apostolic ardor, sealed by his devotion to Mary worked countless conversions. He founded the Hills of Piety to help the poor, created hospices and opened hospitals. He was given the grace of working miracles. He died at Naples on August 7, 1547 and that same day the war ceased, which had been unleashed in the city. Urban VIII beatified him on October 8, 1629. Clement X canonized him on April 12, 1671.

The Theatines' church in Rome was Sant'Andrea della Valle, in which Puccini set the first act of Tosca, including the Te Deum to celebrate the supposed victory of Napoleon at Marengo. Scarpia says "Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio!..." ("Tosca, you make me forget God!") before kneeling and praising God--Saint Cajetan would not have been happy to hear that!

Thomas Goldwell, the Bishop of Asaph, became a Theatine while in exile from England. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he was:

the last survivor of the ancient hierarchy of England; b. probably at the family manor of Goldwell, in the parish of Great Chart, near Ashford, Kent, between 1501 and 1515; d. in Rome, 3 April, 1585. He was a member of a Kentish family of ancient lineage, long seated at Goldwell; and was educated at All Souls College, Oxford, where he graduated M. A. in 1531, and B. D. in 1534. While at Oxford he attained more eminence in mathematics, astronomy, and kindred sciences, than in divinity or the humanities, a point worth remembering in view of his future career. He stood out firmly against the innovations in religion brought about by Henry VIII. At an early date he became intimate with Reginald, afterwards Cardinal, Pole, a friendship which proved to be a long lasting one, and which had considerable influence on Goldwell's subsequent career. Soon after 1535, when the king had begun his drastic measures of ecclesiastical spoliation, Goldwell became Pole's chaplain and joined him in exile, being included in the same Act of Attainder "for casting off his duty to the King, and submitting to the Bishop of Rome". He reached Rome in 1538, and shortly afterwards he was appointed camerarius of the English Hospital of the Holy Trinity. In 1547 he became a novice in the Theatine House of St. Paul, at Naples. On the death of Paul III, Pole, now a cardinal, asked and obtained permission for Goldwell to accompany him to Rome, and thus he was present at the long conclave of 1549-50 in the capacity of Pole's personal attendant. After the election of Julius III, Goldwell returned to Naples, and made his profession as a Theatine.

Goldwell returned to England when Reginald Cardinal Pole was sent as Papal Legate. He was with Pole when he died and then left England again when Elizabeth I succeeded. Goldwell attended the last session of the Council of Trent.

The Final Session of the Council of Trent Opens

The third and final session of the Council of Trent opened on January 18, 1562, convened by Pope Pius IV, a good Medici. This session decided many details about priestly formation: bishops were to ordain only suitable men to holy orders and to supervise their moral life; clergy were to reside in their parishes and to perform regular duties; a seminary was to be established in every diocese; the discipline of clerical celibacy was upheld, etc.

This was the session of the Council attended by the last Catholic Bishop of St. Asaph's, Thomas Goldwell. He had been appointed by Mary I and he gave the last rites to Reginald Cardinal Pole, but had to go into exile at the beginning of Elizabeth I's reign without ever really becoming the ordinary of his diocese in Wales. As the Catholic Encyclopedia explains:

He was the only English bishop at the Council of Trent, where he was treated with marked respect. He was there engaged in the revision of the Breviary and the Missal; and also urged the council to excommunicate Queen Elizabeth. His mere presence at Trent was a cause of such excessive annoyance to Elizabeth that she wrote the following extraordinary farrago of falsehood to her German envoy Mundt: "We think it may be that one Goldwell, a very simple and fond man, having in our late sister's time been named to a small bishopric in Wales called St. Asaph, though never thereto admitted, flying out of the realm upon our sister's death, is gone to Rome as a renegade, and there using the name of a bishop, without order or title, is perhaps gone in the train of some Cardinal to Trent, and so it is likely the speech hath arisen of a bishop of England being there."

Not only did Thomas Goldwell attend the third session of the Council of Trent, but he was active in implementing its reforms:

In 1563 Goldwell was vicar-general to the Archbishop of Milan, St. Charles Borromeo. In 1567 he was made vicar of the cardinal archpriest in the Lateran, and in 1574 the Cardinal Vicar Savelli made him his vicegerent; he thus became, so to speak, the "working" bishop of Rome. . . . One of the last acts of his long and strenuous career was to serve on the Congregation for the Revision of the Roman Martyrology, in 1582. On the death of the Bishop of Lincoln, in 1584, Goldwell became the sole survivor of the ancient English hierarchy. He died the next year [on April 3], and was buried at St. Sylvester's.

He had even tried to accompany St. Edmund Campion, Father Robert Persons, et al on the mission to England in 1580 but became too ill during the journey on the Continent from Rome to the coast. He had to turn back at Reims. 

The Former Bishop of St. Asaph Dies in Rome

Thomas Goldwell, the former Bishop of St. Asaph's in Wales (mostly) died on April 3, 1585 in Rome. He was the last surviving bishop of the Catholic hierarchy of England and had endured many dangers and changes in fortune, because he was true to his Catholic faith from the reign of Henry VIII to the reign of Elizabeth I. He was in exile during the reign of Henry VIII with Reginald Pole and then returned to England during the reign of Mary I before departing again after Elizabeth I's supremacy was legislated. Goldwell traveled with Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons on their mission to England in 1580, intending to return in spite of his age to minister to the Catholic underground. He became ill, however, while still on the Continent and so returned to Rome.

He was a Theatine, having joined the order founded by Gaetano dei Conti di Tiene, Paolo Consiglieri, Bonifacio da Colle, and Giovanni Pietro Carafa, afterwards Pope Paul IV while in exile with Pole, so when he went into exile the last time, he served that order at San Silvestro al Quirinale (pictured). The Catholic Encyclopedia describes his career in Italy:

He then became an active Catholic exile. He started at once for Rome, but was detained at Louvain by sickness. He refused the offer of an Italian bishopric, preferring to devote himself to his order (the Theatines) and to the conversion of England. In 1561 he was made superior of his old convent at Naples, and also warden of the English Hospital at Rome. He was the only English bishop at the Council of Trent, where he was treated with marked respect. He was there engaged in the revision of the Breviary and the Missal; and also urged the council to excommunicate Queen Elizabeth. . . . In 1563 Goldwell was vicar-general to the Archbishop of Milan, St. Charles Borromeo. In 1567 he was made vicar of the cardinal archpriest in the Lateran, and in 1574 the Cardinal Vicar Savelli made him his vicegerent; he thus became, so to speak, the "working" bishop of Rome. . . . One of the last acts of his long and strenuous career was to serve on the Congregation for the Revision of the Roman Martyrology, in 1582. On the death of the Bishop of Lincoln, in 1584, Goldwell became the sole survivor of the ancient English hierarchy. He died the next year, and was buried at St. Sylvester's.

The Bishop of Lincoln who died in 1584 was Thomas Watson. He was 69 years old when he died in captivity at Wisbech Castle on October 15, after spending 25 years in captivity during Elizabeth I's reign, including time in the Tower of London.