CARLO CARAFA, Venerable. – Founder of the Congregation of the Pious Workers (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, but left after five years due to a serious illness. For a time he retained the clerical habit in his father’s house; but once his health was restored, he took up a military career and gave himself over to a dissolute life. Soon, however, he recognized his errors, left the military life, and embraced the ecclesiastical state anew, celebrating his first Mass on 1 January 1600. He immediately resolved to dedicate his life to charity toward the poor and the suffering; to this end, he went to live near the Hospital of the Incurables 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 to undertake another work of moral rehabilitation: the reformation of fallen women, many of whom he guided toward marriage and many more he helped enter monasteries, two of which he founded himself. At the wish of the Archbishop of Naples, he returned to live in the city and was entrusted with the church of *Tutti i Santi*, from which he launched the fervent apostolic activity that characterizes the final period of his life. He served as superior and reformer of the seminary of Naples. With three priests, he founded his principal institution (for missions), which took the name of the Pious Workers after its approval by Gregory XV in 1621. The Pious Workers were later entrusted with the churches of Santa Balbina, San Lorenzo in Macel dei Corvi (near Trajan’s Forum, now demolished), Santa Maria dei Monti (with the direction of the annexed House of the Catechumens), and San Giuseppe alla Lungara in Rome.
He died in the house adjacent to the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Naples, where he is buried.