Feast day: August 7
Saint Cajetan, born in Venice, Italy, began his adult life by first becoming a lawyer and then turning to the priesthood. He was ordained at 36, and at age 42 established a hospital in Venice, Italy, for those suffering from incurable ailments. Cajetan felt called to minister to the sick and the poor in his town, so he joined the Oratory of Divine Love.
Saint Cajetan believed that the Church greatly needed reform. Rather than break away from the Church, he felt that the most effective solution was to recover the spirit and fervor of the clergy. He formed a congregation called the Theatones with the goal of bringing about this renewal. Cajetan worked to assist the poor in a unique way—by opening a nonprofit bank that lent money to those who were down on their luck, without using the harmful tactics of usurers. (Usurers are people who lend money at exorbitantly high rates of interest.) This bank still exists and is now known as the Bank of Napoli (Naples).
Saint Cajetan died in 1547 in Naples and was canonized in 1671.
(Image M. I. S., public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)