1/ Since there’s been some discussion about #FratelliTutti’s presentation of Saint Francis of Assisi, let me list various FACTS that undermine some MYTHS about this holy man in a Thread.

2/ As I recently noted, Saint Francis told the Muslim Sultan al-Kamil he was there to explicate the truth of the Christian faith and save the sultan’s soul. He was not there for diplomatic pleasantries. #FratelliTutti

3/ Saint Francis was “fiercely orthodox” on faith and morals: he thought that friars guilty of liturgical abuses or heresy should be remanded to higher church authorities. #FratelliTutti

4/The Peace Prayer of Saint Francis can’t be traced further back than a French magazine published in 1912. #FratelliTutti

5/ Saint Francis articulated no legal or social reform program whatsoever. Such projects were “alien” to him. #FratelliTutti

6/ Saint Francis believed that his followers should engage in manual labor to procure necessities. Begging was seen as a secondary alternative. #FratelliTutti

7/ Saint Francis believed one’s most direct contact with God was in the Mass, not in serving in the poor or in the natural world. #FratelliTutti

8/ Saint Francis rejected abstinence from meat and wasn’t a vegetarian. #FratelliTutti

9/ Saint Francis loved animals but regarded vermin and mice as the devil’s agents. #FratelliTutti

10/ Saint Francis believed the Mass required careful preparation, use of the finest sacred vessels, and proper vestments. #FratelliTutti

11/ Saint Francis’s final words to his followers were concerned with proper reverence for the Eucharist, not poverty. #FratelliTutti

12/ “Francis was a 13th century orthodox Catholic, not a modern spiritual individualist . . .” #FratelliTutti

13/ There was “not a hint trace of pantheism in Francis’s approach to nature”. Francis’s references and allusions to nature in his writings, preaching, and instruction were overwhelmingly drawn from the Scriptures rather than the environment itself. #FratelliTutti

14/ Francis regarded the beauty in nature and the animal world as something that should lead to worship and praise of God—but not things to be invested with god-like qualities. #FratelliTutti

15/ The Source for all these FACTS? Augustine Thompson OP’s meticulously researched “Francis of Assisi: A New Biography” (2012). #FratelliTutti https://www.amazon.com/Francis-Assisi-Biography-Augustine-Thompson/dp/0801450705

16/ Facts matter. Whether you like them or not is, I’m afraid, irrelevant. Thank you for reading. #FratelliTutti