OBREGÓN, BERNARDINO. — Founder of the Congregation of the Minimi Brothers, born near Burgos on 20 May 1540, died in Madrid on 6 August 1590. Having soon become an orphan after the death of his protector, Bishop F. de Guevara, he devoted himself to a military career, taking part in several campaigns under Philip II.
Following a sudden religious vocation, he dedicated himself to the care of the sick at the royal hospital in Madrid, soon gathering around him numerous imitators. With these, in 1568 he founded a congregation approved by the apostolic nuncio and known as the Minimi Brothers or also the Obregoniani. They took charge of the administration of the general hospital in Madrid and spread rapidly to other areas; in 1589 they pronounced vows of poverty, chastity, hospitality, and obedience and adopted the Rule and habit of the Third Order.
O. was also in Lisbon in 1592, where he founded a children’s shelter and reorganized hospital services; in 1549 he drafted the Statutes of the Congregation, and in 1598 he attended to the dying Philip II.