CAPUCHINESSES
320
CAPUCHIN
and Cardinal Capeeelatro, Librarian of the Holy
Roman Church and author of many learned works.
The suffragan dioceses of Capua are: Caiazzo, Calvi
and Teano. Caserta, Isernia and Venafro, Sessa Au-
runea. The archdiocese contains a population of
96,800, with 57 parishes, 90 churches and chapels,
255 secular and 18 regular priests, 16 religious houses
of women.
Cappelletti, Le chiese d'ltalia (Venice, 1844); Ann. eccl. (Rome, 1907), 367.
U. Benigni.
Capuchinesses, a branch of the Poor Clares of the Primitive Observance, instituted at Naples, in 1538, by the Venerable Maria Longo. This holy woman had in early years embraced the rule of the Third Order of St. Francis and devoted herself to active works of charity. She founded a hospital for the sick in which she herself served, and also gave herself to the saving of fallen women. She adopted at her hospital the custom of ringing the bell at nightfall for prayers for the faithful departed. In 1630 the Fran- ciscan Friars of the Capuchin Reform went to Naples, and were for a time given shelter in her hospital. She had long wished to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but about this time she was instructed in prayer that she could please God more by building a convent under the title of Santa Maria in Gerusa- lemme. She built the convent and established in it a community of sisters under the Rule of the Third Order, and was herself appointed superior. At first the spiritual directors of the convent were the Thea- tine Fathers, but afterwards these gave over the di- rection to the Capuchins, by whose advice the sisters in 1538 adopted the primitive Rule of St. Clare. They also received constitutions based on those of the Capuchin Friars, and were placed under the jur- isdiction of the Capuchin vicar-general, whence they are styled Capuchinesses. They made a foundation in Rome in 1576 and very shortly afterwards were to be found in various parts of Italy and France, where they flourished until the Revolution. They still exist, in diminished numbers, in Italy and elsewhere. Some of the convents are still under the jurisdiction of the Minister-General of the Capuchin Friars Minor; others are under the jurisdiction of their re- spective diocesans. St. Veronica Giuliani wasamem- ber of this observance, as was also the Blessed Mary Magdalen Martinengo. The Capuchinesses flour- ished in many countries of Europe before the Revo- lution; they still have convents in Italy and Spain, also in South America, and until lately in France. Exiled French Capuchinesses opened (1904) a house at Vaals in Holland, near Aachen, destined to serve as a German novitiate.
Boverius, Annales Capucinorum (Lvons, 1032-39); ad an. l.WS and i:>Ui: Bullarium Ord. Cap. (Rome, 1740-1 S83) ; Anton, Life of Ven. Maria Longo, in German ( Munich-!)! 11 ingen. 1903) ; HeIMBlTCHER, Orden und Kongreg. d. Kalh. Kirche (Paderborn, 1907), 11.486-87.
Father Cuthbert.
Capuchin Friars Minor, an autonomous branch of the first Franciscan Order, the other branches be- ing the Friars Minor simply so called, but until lately usually known as Observants or Recollects, and the Conventual Friars Minor. This division of the first Franciscan Order has come about by reason of various reforms; thus the Observants were a reform which separated from the Conventuals, and the Capuchins are a reform of the Observants.
I. Genesis and Development. — The Capuchin Reform dates from 1525. It had its origin in the Marches, the Italian province where, after Umbria, l he Franciscan spirit seems to have found its most congenial dwelling-place. Cut <>ff by the mountains from the great highways of Italy, the inhabitants of the Marches have to this day retained a delightful simplicity of character and blend a mystical tendency
with a practical bent of mind. They may be said to
possess the anima naturaliter Franciscana, and it is
easy to understand the quick response of the people
of this province to the Franciscan teaching, and the
tenacity with which the friars of the Marches clung
to the primitive simplicity of the order. We have a
monument of the enduring vigour of the Franciscan
spirit in the Marches in the "Fioretti di San Fran-
cesco", wherein the first freshness of the Franciscan
spirit seems to have been caught up and enshrined.
From the Marches, too, we get another book, of a
very different character, but which in its own way
bears eloquent witness to the zeal of the brethren of
this province for poverty, the "Historia VII Tribula-
tionum" of Angelo Clareno. And at Camerino, on
the borders of the province, are preserved the relics
of Blessed John of Parma, another of the leaders of
the "Spiritual" Friars. The Marches were, in fact.
from the earliest days of the order, a centre of resist-
ance to the secularizing tendency which found an
entrance amongst the friars even in the days of St.
Francis, of which tendency the famous Brother Elias
is the historic type.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Franciscans in the Marches, as elsewhere, were di- vided into the two distinct families of Conventuals and Observants or Zoccolanti. The dividing line between the two families was their adhesion to the primitive ideal of Franciscan poverty and simplicity: the Conventuals accepted revenues by papal dispen- sation; the Observants refused fixed revenues and lived by casual alms. At least such was the principle; but in practice the Observants had come themselves to relax the principle under various legal devices. Thus, though they would not accept money them- selves, they allowed secular persons, styled syndics, to accept money for their use; they accepted chap- laincies to which were affixed regular stipends. To those who looked to the primitive custom of the order, such acceptances seemed but a legalized betrayal of the rule, nor were t hese relaxations at any time allowed to pass without protest from the more zealous of the Observants. But the question was not merely con- cerning this or that point; it was one of general ten- dency. Was the order to maintain itself in the sim- plicity and unworldliness of St. Francis, or was it to admit and bow to the spirit of the world? Was it to be dominated by the spirit of St. Francis or by the spirit of Brother Elias? Such was the question as it shaped itself in the minds of the reforming friars; and one has to recognize this truly to appreciate the his- tory of the various Franciscan reforms. The diffi- culty which met each reform, as it arose and acquired an independent constitution, was the difficulty which meets every unworldly ideal in its attempt to propa- gate itself in the actual world. To live on and endure it must take to itself a secular embodiment, anil in the process is apt to acquire something of the secular spirit; and the more unworldly the original ideal, the more difficult is its process of secular development. This is peculiarly so in the case of a religious commu- nity like the Franciscan Order, which aims at realizing a principle of life so entirely opposed to the principles commonly accepted in the world at large. Heme it is that the Observants, after breaking away from the Conventuals, themselves gave rise to various reforms, which aimed at a more perfect return to the primitive type. In this way the Capuchin Reform took its origin from amongst the Observants of the Marches. The leader of the reform was Father Matteo di Bassi, a member of the Observant community in the Diocese of Fermo. He was an exemplary religious and a zeal- ous preacher. It is said that Leo X had given him permission to institute a reform amongst the Obser- vants; but if so Father Matteo did not avail him- self of the permission, perhaps because of the death of that pontiff. But in 1525, a year of Jubilee, he went
