a religious order in the Roman church, so called from their principal founder John Peter Caraffa, then bishop of Theate, or Chieti, in the kingdom of Naples, and afterwards pope, under the name of Paul IV. The names of the other founders were Gaetan, Boniface, and Comigliani. These four pious men desiring to reform the ecclesiastical state, laid the foundation of an order of regular clerks at Rome in the year 1524. Pope Clement VII. approved the institution, and permitted the brethren to make the three religious vows, to elect a superior every three years, and to draw up statutes for the regulation of the order. They first endeavoured, by their example, to revive among the clergy the poverty of the apostles and first disciples of our Saviour, and were the first who assumed the title of regular clerks.