CAPUCHINS, an order of mendicant friars in the Roman Catholic Church founded in 1528 in virtue of a bull of Clement VII. Its founder, Matteo di Bassi, was a member of the rigorist section of the Observantine Franciscans, who sought to restore the rule of perfect poverty and humility, and to be of aid to parish priests in the cure of souls. The Capuchin friars ob tained their name from the capuerce, cowl or hood which they wore. They were vowed to live according to the rule of Saint Francis in hermitages and to labor for the conversion of notorious sinners. Their churches were to be bare of ornament. Soon after their foundation they did heroic service in ministering to those stricken by the plague which at that time rav aged all Italy. The third vicar-general of the order, Bernardino Ochino, brought the Capu chins into discredit by his notorious lean ings toward Protestantism, and the fraternity was interdicted from preaching by Paul III, and would have been suppressed had not Car dinal Sanseverino, archbishop of Naples, in terceded for them. Paul also forbade them to establish any convents beyond the Alps, but his successor, Gregory XIII, revoked that de cree. Again, Gregory XIV in 1591 withdrew
from them the faculty of ministering in the confessional; but it was restored to them 10 years later by Clement VIII. Finally, in 1619 the fraternity was restored to good standing, and was even erected into an. order adminis tratively independent of the general of the Franciscans, and their vicar-general assumed the style of minister-general. Ever since, the Capuchins have been recognized as eminently useful servants of the Church. The order con ducts missions in all quarters of the globe, and has the reputation of being very successful in winning converts. In 1775, the order had 64 provinces, with 31,000 members, the largest number reached in their history. In Austria, they are most numerous, but there are also 22 scattered missions. Two provinces exist in the United States,—one centres at Detroit, Mich., and one at Pittsburgh, Pa. There is also a missionary district in California. An order of Capuchin nuns was established at Naples in 1538.