CARAFA, CARLO, venerable. – Founder of Pii operai (v.), born in Naples in 1561 to the dukes of Andria; died there on 8 September 1633. At the age of sixteen he entered the Society of Jesus, and left it five years later following a serious illness. For some time he retained clerical dress in his father’s house; but, having regained his health, he devoted himself to military service and surrendered to a dissolute life. He soon recognized his errors, however; abandoning the military, he once again embraced the ecclesiastical state, and on 1 January 1600 celebrated his first Mass. He immediately wished to dedicate his life to charity toward the poor and the suffering; for this purpose he went to live near the Incurables’ Hospital in his city, where he devoted himself to their care and founded an association for the benefit of the sick.
Together with two other priests he moved to the Oratory of the Holy Sepulchre outside Naples; but every morning he returned to the city for another work of moral restoration: the rehabilitation of fallen women, many of whom he guided toward marriage, while very many others he had withdraw into convents—two of which he himself founded. At the wish of the archbishop of Naples, he returned to live in the city, and was entrusted with the church of Tutti i Beni, near which began the fervent apostolic activity that characterized the final period of his life. He was superior and reformer of the seminary of Naples. With three priests he founded his principal institution (for missions), which took the name Pii operai after it was approved by Gregory XV in 1621. The Pii operai were subsequently entrusted in Rome with the churches of S. Balbina, S. Lorenzo a Macel dei Corvi (near Trajan’s Forum, now demolished), S. Maria dei Monti (with the direction of the adjoining house of the Catechumens), and S. Giuseppe alla Lungara.
He died in the house adjoining the church of S. Giorgio Maggiore in Naples, where he is buried.