Clerics Regular Minor

The Order of Clerics Regular Minor (Latin: Ordo Clericorum Regularium Minorum), commonly known as the Caracciolini or Adorno Fathers, is a Roman Catholic religious order of priests and brothers founded by Francesco Caracciolo, Giovanni Agostino Adorno, and Fabrizio Caracciolo in 1588 at Villa Santa Maria, Abruzzo. Belonging to the family of Clerics Regular, its members desired to sanctify themselves and the People of God by imitating in their lives the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Its motto is Ad Maiorem Dei Resurgentis Gloriam, "For the Greater Glory of the Risen God". The members of the congregation use the acronym CRM. after their names.

Augustine Adorno, born John Augustine Adorno, is considered the first founder and the first father of the Clerics Regular Minor. He was born in Genoa in 1551 to Michele and Nicoletta dei Campanari Adorno. His father's family was very much involved in the political affairs of Genoa. His father was a senator of Genoa and was a respected personage of the city. His mother was a woman of virtue and religious piety.

Adorno received his education in diplomacy, and commerce as well as classical studies. In 1573 his father sent him to the court of Philip II, where he stayed for several years. Adorno was a kind of envoy of Genoa to the King of Spain while at the same time he attended to the financial affairs of the family in Spain. He was a banker in the court of Philip II, lending money to the King and his associates. It was in Valencia, Spain that Adorno met Louis Bertrand who prophesied that he would establish a religious order. Two events could be said to have contributed to Adorno's decision to abandon his career as a banker and financial manager of the family's business: he lost a large amount of money gambling, and the death of his father in 1578. These events led Adorno to the realization of the importance of the 'things in heaven' and that everything on earth soon 'comes to an end.'

Upon his return to Genoa, Adorno had time to reflected on his vocation in life and studied theology and the patrology of the Church Fathers in the seminary of Genoa. It was also in Genoa that Adorno thought of establishing a religious order. At 36 years of age, Adorno was ordained a priest on September 19, 1587, in the Church of Saint Restituta. He continued to exercise his pastoral ministry as a member of the Confraternity of the White Robes of Mercy in Naples, reaching out to the prisoners. Adorno also frequented the Hospital of the Incurabili, where he ministered to the sick and the dying. It was in the course of Adorno's pastoral work in this hospital that he met Fabrizio Caracciolo, a relative of Francis Caracciolo.

Fabbrizio Caracciolo was also noble and rich. After obtaining a law degree and with the prospect of a brilliant career as well as a comfortable life, he chose instead the clerical state and was ordained a priest. Soon he was to join the Compagnia dei Bianchi among whom he distinguished himself for the zeal toward the least, especially the jailed and those condemned to die. When Adorno invited him to join in the foundation of the order, he agreed by renouncing all honors and comforts.

Francis Caracciolo was born Ascanio Caracciolo on October 13, 1563, in Villa Santa Maria, Abruzzo, Italy. At twenty-two, Ascanio Caracciolo was a young man enjoying the exceedingly comfortable life available to an Italian nobleman of the sixteenth century, when he contracted a terrible skin disease. Facing death, he vowed that if he recovered he would give the rest of his life to God, and after his miraculous recovery he immediately began studying for the priesthood and was ordained in 1587 at the age of twenty-five. Ascanio's first work was in Naples, with a confraternity that looked after the spiritual welfare of prisoners and those condemned to death.

In 1587, when he mistakenly received a letter addressed to a relative, Fabrizio Caracciolo, the abbot of St. Mary Major in Naples. In it he learned that the writer, a priest call Augustine Adorno, was planning to found an association of priests whose work would combine both active and contemplative life. The project appealed to Ascanio, and he soon joined forces with Augustine Adorno.

The three priests retreated to the Camaldolese hermitage in Naples to write the first Constitutions of the Order. In addition to the three evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience, they contemplated a fourth vow: the renunciation of any ecclesiastical dignity. They recruited ten companions and began their foundation. On July 1 of the same year Pope Sixtus V approved the new group, and on April 9, 1589, the co-founders made their solemn vows, Ascanio taking the name Francis, the name by which he was subsequently known.