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The saints

St. Cajetan

A priest who trusted God for every meal, and founded a bank to fight loan sharks.

Feast: 7 August · 1480 to 1547 · Reformation and missions · Vicenza, Rome and Naples

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Painting of St. Cajetan in a black cassock, beside a book and lilies.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1710. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The saints / St. Cajetan

Naples, the 1500s

Cajetan worked in the papal court before becoming a priest.1

He founded the Theatines, priests who owned nothing and did not even beg, trusting God to provide.1

In Naples he started a charitable bank that lent to the poor so they would not be crushed by usurers.

Patron of job seekers and workers (in Latin America)2

01St. Cajetan

Trust and reform

He worked to renew the clergy before the Council of Trent, and cared for the sick in hospitals.1

Live it this week

Help someone who is out of work

Cajetan is the saint people visit when they need a job. This week, help one person job hunting: fix their resume, pass on a lead, make an introduction.

Notes

How we know · 2 sources for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Cajetan”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org
  2. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Cajetan”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.