Benincasa, Osanna, Venerable

BENINCASA, Osanna, Venerable. - Foundress of the Congregation of the Teatine, b. in Naples on 20 Oct. 1547, d. there on 20 Oct. 1618. From her childhood she was animated by a singular religious fervor, on account of which she lived in an almost cloistral manner when she was unable to put on the habit of the Capuchin nuns of the monastery of S. Maria in Gerusalemme. She then withdrew into solitude on Monte S. Elmo, regarded by all Naples as a saint. In 1582 she went to Rome to present herself to Pope Gregory XIII, who charged the Cardinal of S. Severina, G. A. Santori, to assemble a Congregation of learned men, of which St. Philip Neri was also a member, for the examination of her virtues, which were universally acknowledged. Having therefore returned to Naples, she founded, in that same house on Monte S. Elmo, the Congregation of the Most Holy Conception of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, afterwards called that of the Teatine because of the similarity of its rules and habit to those of the Theatines and because the new foundation had also been placed under the government of those same fathers. The Teatine, whose rules were approved by Gregory XV on 23 June 1623, are divided into the two branches of the Congregation and the Hermitage. Pius VI approved the heroic virtues of the venerable with a decree of 7 Aug. 1793.