Aurelio Porfiri
Professor Guido Vignelli, an Italian scholar of ethics, political philosophy and social doctrine of the Catholic Church has devoted to Saint Francis a book called San Francesco Antimoderno (2010, Fede & Cultura). He is now working on another book on the same topic for an English audience.
What is the dominant image of the most popular saint in the world?
Since even the figure of the Redeemer Jesus Christ has been diminished, deformed and manipulated with disconcerting audacity and often even in bad faith, it is not surprising that such treatment has been applied to his followers down the centuries, even by some authors that are Christians. Unfortunately, the dominant image of St Francis has been severely “updated” in order to adapt it to modern sensibility. In a contradictory manner, he has been painted from time to time as a pauperist and a revolutionary, or as a pacifist and ecologist, or as an “ecumenist” and a relativist. In doing so, the message, the example and the Franciscan model were deprived of their original authenticity, seriousness and radicalness and were either placed in a violent revolution framework, such as the “liberation theology,” or, on the contrary, were immersed in a sweetish and vile sentimentalism, or even in the smoke of a “new age” style spirituality. But, in this way, the authentic Franciscan message was not so much diminished but substituted by fashionable surrogates, as when a healthy and nutritious food is replaced by a tasteless food that is devoid of nutritive substance although pleasant on the palate.
Was Saint Francis a herald of political correctness?
On the contrary, St Francis was politically uncorrect. Demanding, severe, combative reformer, St Francis was a model of humility and austerity; therefore his example is radically opposed to the pride and sensuality of our age. These two vices today are favored by “political correctness” that imposes a conformism and a habit toward error and evil that is helping the now growing anti-Christian revolution. St Francis well knew that man is not good by nature, but rather is wounded by the original sin and inclined to do evil. Therefore, in order to be saved, man needs to be exhorted to repentance, conversion and penance; moreover, he needs to be corrected for his mistakes, rebuked for his faults and subjected to those punishments that can keep him away from sin. Few people know that St Francis had entrusted one of his friars, who had been a boxer, to physically punish those confreres who gave scandal.
Was St Francis a pioneer of modern ecologism?
St Francis had a sapiential conception of nature, its knowledge and its use. He considered nature not as an idol to worship and to which sacrifice civilization, as today demands extremist ecologism, but as a creature, as a created “environment” that manifests the divine grandeur of the Creator and as an instrument given by Him to man for his progress and above all for his salvation. Nor can we consider St Francis as a precursor of today’s “animalism” or vegetarianism: he loved some (not all!) animals as images of moral virtues or sacred figures and celebrated religious festivals by eating everything, even meat , like the Easter lamb.
Was he a forerunner of religious ecumenism?
The teaching and example of St Francis are “ecumenical” only in the traditional sense of the term: that is, they aim to convert infidels, heretics and schismatics to bring them back to the only true God, to the only true Faith and to the only true Church. Nothing to do, then, with that relativistic and pacifist ecumenism that would like to sacrifice evangelization to respect for a false religious peace. This also applies to the brief relationship that the Seraphic father had with Islam, a well-synthesized report from his famous meeting with the Egyptian Sultan. To him, St Francis proposed to repudiate Islamism to convert to the only true God and Savior. When some of his friars were martyred by Muslims in Morocco, because they had refuted the Mohammedan error in front of his mullahs, St Francis praised them as “my first true followers and imitators.”
Was St Francis a revolutionary in politics?
A friar who can begin his mission by obeying the Crucified’s request to “restore” the true Church cannot be called “revolutionary.” St Francis was neither egalitarian nor pauperist, he did not propagate a political program, he did not incite social rebellion, he did not urge the generational revolt, he did not contest the ecclesiastical hierarchy but only its abuses. On the contrary, he defended property, urged social peace, respect for authority, obedience to parents. Also for this reason, he was followed and imitated not only by the poor and marginalized, but also by the rich and noble, not a few of whom were then proclaimed saints by the Church.
What is the true sense of Franciscan poverty?
True Franciscan poverty consists in the personal renunciation of all the benefits made possible by private property and by social life: namely economic security, professional satisfaction, social prestige, political influence; all things good, but inferior to that chosen freedom of spirit that is assured mainly by the renunciation of the world, the family and goods. When we have renounced the security and satisfactions given by the family and property, then we live in total abandonment to Divine Providence. However, this renunciation is worthy only if it is a voluntary choice freely made by an elite to sanctify itself, but becomes guilty and ruinous if it is an imposition made by a sect to society to repudiate the benefits of Christian civilization, as happened with the socialist dictatorship.
Then St Francis has not preached poverty in the life of the Church?
The Seraphic father wanted a poor but not miserable or impotent Church. Since the time of the primitive apostolic community, today naively mythologized, the Church has received many and rich goods as a gift and is concerned with managing them adequately to sustain itself as an organized society and to become independent of political powers. The Church has thus used those goods in order to help the poor, of course, but also to provide for liturgical worship, which must be solemn and sumptuous, in order to give God the glory. Consequently, St Francis wanted his Order to live poorly and in poor homes, but he also established that he receive as donation, gifts and treasures to adorn the churches and the altars, in order to celebrate a cult pleasing to God. For this reason too, the Franciscan Order has contributed to the Christian civilization enriching it in the arts, in the sciences and in the culture in general.
Can you give an example of a document that presents the true image of St Francis?
It would be enough to reread the primitive Franciscan sources, beginning with the texts of the blessed Tommaso da Celano and the beautiful biography written by St Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. I would add the eloquent encyclical Rite expiatis, published in 1929 by Pope Pius XI, who already denounced the incipient falsification of the Franciscan model and invited the faithful to rediscover the true one. Unfortunately, on the contrary, since then this falsification has worsened, as evidenced by many books by famous authors, such as Balducci, Basetti Sani, Boff, Caretto, Fabbretti, Jeusset, Miccoli, Ortensio da Spinertoli: almost all members of the Franciscan Order, mind you! Instead, other friars I had as friends – like Antonio Coccia, Antonio Di Monda and Stefano Manelli – helped me to rediscover the true message of St Francis.
Why has the fake image and narrative about St Francis you are trying to dispel taken place?
The Franciscan image, message and example were subjected to a work of deformation begun at the end of the nineteenth century by Protestant and liberal circles who, after having despised the true St Francis for decades, attempted to pollute the inheritance spreading a falsified portrait. Particularly influential was the work of the Calvinist Paul Sabatier, who also was influential among Franciscan scholars. This can only be explained by a sort of conspiracy that has allied, on the one hand, some prejudiced and unfair historians, who have adapted Franciscanism to their laicist and revolutionary ideology, and, on the other hand, many clumsy Christian propagandists, who wanted to spread an image of the saint “updated” to progressive conformism, in the illusion of making it less scandalous and more acceptable. A long series of essays, novels, comics, comedies, musicals, films, and television broadcasts have then imposed this false image on the general public: and so, a repeated falsity thousands of times has become an indisputable truth. And yet, it is enough to go back to the historical sources of the thirteenth century to recover the true Franciscan example in its historical authenticity. This is a model of holiness – evidently anti-modern – which, precisely for this reason, today is topical and maintains a certain charm that attracts especially young people who are disgusted by “modernity,” are aware of its failure and seek a credible alternative. Even in the case of Franciscanism it is worth the old motto that says: “Rediscover the ancient and there will be progress.”
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