Barnabites

Clerics Regular of St. Paul, Barnabites

Congregatio Clericorum Regularium S. Pauli, Barnabitarum
One version of the Barnabite logo. Here P.A. refers to Paul the Apostle and the three hills symbolize the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Abbreviation	B. (or C.R.S.P. in the United States)
Motto	Caritas Christi urget nos – the love of Christ impels us. (2 Cor 5:14)
Formation	1530
Founder	St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria
Type	Institute of Consecrated Life
Headquarters	Via Giacomo Medici, 15, 00153 Roma, Italia
Membership (2013)	411 (of whom 285 are priests)
Superior General	Fr. Chagas Maria Santos da Silva
Website	barnabites.com

The Barnabites are Catholic priests and Religious Brothers belonging to the Roman Catholic religious order of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul (Latin: Clerici Regulares Sancti Pauli), founded in 1530. While they used to use the postnominal initials of simply "B.", they currently use C.R.S.P. Associated to the members of the Order are the Angelic Sisters of St. Paul and the lay members of the Barnabite lay movement.

Second in seniority of the orders of regular clerics (the Theatines being first), the Barnabites were founded in Milan, Italy in 1530 by three Italian noblemen: St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria, Bartholomeo Ferrari and Cardinal . The region was then suffering severely from the wars between Charles V and Francis I, and Zaccaria saw the need for radical reform of the Church in Lombardy, afflicted by problems typical for that era: dioceses without a bishop, clergy with inadequate theological formation, a decrease in religious practice, and monasteries and convents in decline.

It was approved by Pope Clement VII in the brief Vota per quae vos in 1533. Later approvals gave it the status of a Religious Order, but it is still normally referred to as a congregation. Both the date and the vocation place it among the Orders associated with the Counter-Reformation. Zaccaria's holiness moved many to reform their lives but it also moved many to oppose him. Twice his community had to undergo official religious investigation, and twice it was exonerated.

The order was given the name of "Regular Clerics of St. Paul" (Clerici Regulares Sancti Pauli). In 1538 the grand old monastery of Saint Barnabas by the city wall of Milan was given to the congregation as their main seat, and thenceforth they were known the popular name of Barnabites. After the death of Zaccaria in 1539, the congregation was favored and protected by Archbishop Charles Borromeo of Milan and later by Francis de Sales because of their successful missionary work in Upper Italy. Charles Borromeo presided, in 1579, as Cardinal Protector, over the commission which wrote the Constitutions of the Order. The General Chapters of the Order were regularly held at Milan until the reign of Pope Alexander VII (1655–67), who ordered them to convene in Rome. Pope Innocent XI (1676–89), however, finally decreed that they should be held in Rome and Milan alternately.