Donal Spoto's excellent biography of St. Francis of Assisi, Reluctant Saint, remind us that both our Church and our world appear to be locked in war's embrace, of one kind or the other.  Paralyzed, we stand in the eye of the storm, praying together, living one day at a time.

As Church, we appear to be standing on the cusp of change, uncertain, yet relying on grace and the support of community to find the way.

Groups here, there, and others across the pond, are beginning to understand that only peaceful pilgrims will turn swords into plowshares, for they have no financial, or power-hungry stake in war’s pursuit.

While the writer transports us to the gated commune of Assisi in Umbria, Italy, we soon realize that the familiar taste of war awaits us there, where every man had to serve duty on the turrets above the town, eyes trained westward to Perugia, under papal control and closely monitored by imperial minions.

Spoto describes Assisi as a new Babylon, a place of wild debauchery, where murder and street fights to the death were commonplace, with revenge as the prevailing motive...

It is 1182, and the fierce spring storms have subsided, leaving Peter Bernardone free to join the caravans leaving for France, to trade at the great cloth markets and textile fairs flourishing in Toulouse, Montpellier, Burgundy and Flanders.

Later, in his Assisi shop, Bernardone’s workers would turn out brocaded cloaks, vests, furred hats, gold collars and gray stocking caps.

While Bernardone was away, his wife Pica gave birth to a boy in 1182. The mother had him baptized John, which enraged the father, who insisted the child should be called Franciscus, named after the country that helped produce the family’s fortune.

Sickness, pain and early death were taken for granted in their world, where faith, alone, provided a way of coping with such bleak realities.

Weddings were blessed, Spoto wrote, but adultery was expected. Often, parents arranged marriages for their eight and nine-year old children. Most girls had had several children by the time they were 15 or 16.

Mandatory celibacy had been mandated a century before Francis, during the papacy of Gregory VII (1073-1085), who urged the laity to revolt against the married clergy and who called for priests’ wives to be hunted down and banished (or worse).

During the Second Lateran Council of 1139, the priests’ wives were denounced as disreputable concubines, and their children were kidnapped to become Church slaves. Thus, ecclesiastical power was restricted to the clergy, and the laity were disenfranchised... Compulsory celibacy broke the bond between the lives of the clergy and the people, who became subservient to a priestly caste. The coarsest jokes concerned lecherous clerics who seduced housewives and maidservants.

Most Catholics knew of at least one son or daughter of a clergyman, which didn’t raise the respect due the clergy. With the medieval clergy in such ill repute, the people often consulted with witches and astrologers.

The medieval clergy were uneducated, as poor as the laity, and, for the most part, unhappy, stated Spoto. Bibles, missals and Office books had to be copied by hand. They were expensive and rare; consequently, there was little demand for them.

During this period of Christendom, the people were ruled by the church of Rome and the authority of the Holy Roman empire, consisting of Western and Central Europe, Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia, Poland, Hungary and Russia. The followers of Islam occupied most of Spain, Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Holy Land.

Emperors of the day strove to interfere with Church authority by controlling the appointments of bishops and deciding doctrinal disputes.

The seizure of Jerusalem by Muslims resulted in the Crusades, which turned peaceful Christians into armed invaders. The Catholics looked upon the Crusades as an opportunity for salvation, or even martyrdom – saintly men were they without becoming priests or monks.

Francis was sent to school at the church of San Giorgio, a primary school for Assisi’s boys, taught by a resident priest. The boy’s entire formal education lasted for about three years.

Stephen of Bourbon wrote that Francis was “a man of very little education.” His teachers frequently used passages from The Book of the Psalms, for memorization assignments, which Francis often quoted in his adult years.

Just as Francis was reaching adolescence, his father took him out of school, and brought him along on his business trips for several years. At the age of 13, the boy began work in the shop at a time when fashion was becoming important to a rising middle class.

Spoto quotes an early source in describing Francis as “vastly different from his father – more good-natured and generous, given over to revelry and song with his friends, roaming day and night throughout the city.”

He was said to have squandered money on lavish parties. “Since (they, his parents) were wealthy and loved him very much, they tolerated all these things to avoid upsetting him.” How ironic, considering how much the future saint would endure without upsetting anyone.

Pica would defend the boy, insisting that, “He will still be a goodly child, through grace.” She had no idea of how prophetic were her words.

(To be continued)

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