this reminds me of when/why Pope Benedict was so angry with the Franciscans at Assisi - they tried to re-make Saint Francis as a pacifist, ecologist, and syncretist.
He was not a pacifist?
“Absolutely not. Franscis participated in the fifth Crusade as chaplain of troops who were certainly not men of peace. He sought martyrdom through participating in a crusade to reconquer the Holy Land and fell into depression when the crusaders lost. He did not go to the sultan to dialog but to try and convert him, challenging him to walk over burning coals to prove whether Christ or Mohammed was more powerful. And he was not even an animal lover. In his Song of Creation, he never mentions animals. Nor was he an ecologist! He opposed those among his followers who wanted to be a vegetarian community.”
Now, therefore, the Pope wishes to re-establish orthodoxy?
“Of course. Even in San Giovanni Rotondo [hometown of Padre Pio], the Franciscans have taken the Sanctuary from the control of the diocese. So both there and in Assisi, it is important that the friars’ initiatives be in agreement with that of the bishopric. It wil be good even for the Sacred Convent [main Franciscan church in Assisi], because it will put an end to the friars' politically correct demagoguery. An end to the pretense of peace, ecology, ecumenism and pseudo-courageous vaingloriousness which shakes the hands of dictators [this refers to the ostentatious welcome given by the friars to Saddam's deputy Tariq Aziz, a Christian, when he visited Assisi a few months before the war] and violates the Church itself.”
The Pope wants to normalize things?
“The spirit of Assisi is not what the friars of the Sacred Convent have made it to be, and Joseph Ratzinger is fully aware of the colossal error made during that World Day of Prayer in 1986. So much so that three years later, he succeeded in attenuating the syncretist tendencies of the last inter-religious meeting in Assisi, beginning with a correction of the false picture of the historic Francis . And it has been disconcerting that up to now, the bishop of Assisi has learned of any new initiative by the friars only by reading about it in the papers.”
The end to the “world capital of ecumenism”?
“The sanctuaries should coordinate with the bishops. Ratzinger’s intervention at this point is irreproachable. The Pope has followed his own style, acting in a respectful manner that does not interfere with the monastic life of the order itself, but decisively, in a way that serves as a warning to all. The Church will no longer tolerate events which are exempt from the laws of the Church. It is a choice that is well within Benedict’s pastoral strategy. No one can be a law unto themselves.”
This ignorant protesty is not all that well read in all that. But from what I do know, your analysis seems quite apt, fitting. Thanks.
I was in Assisi a couple of weeks ago. I went with great dread because I thought it was going to be like going to an encampment of the "Rainbow Nation" or some other hippie flake-fest. But whatever BXVI has done to improve it has worked.
The place struck me as totally orthodox, St. Francis was correctly portrayed as someone on fire with the love of God and wishing to make conversions and suffer to do so, there were lines at the confessionals, etc. We even stumbled into the Vespers of a small new community of (young) TOR brothers and sisters, and they were all in habits, singing the psalms, and I didn't see a single peace sign in the place. Nor did I see what I was really fearing, non-Christian symbols or worship in the churches or other Franciscan holy places.
I don't know what has happened to the Franciscans, who were an order that really went down hill (I read that they had the highest AIDS rate of any order). Possibly because there are so many Franciscan orders or variants thereof, the bad ones have dwindled and good ones have been encouraged to come forward and take their places. But while I didn't have any in-depth conversations with any of them, I didn't get the impression that there was much weirdness going on, and Sunday Mass was orthodox, carefully celebrated and had a very sound sermon (unless my Italian is so bad that I completely misunderstood it!).
Myabe BXVI has "rescued" St. Francis.
Now the J*suits I'm familiar with! They somehow went from being the most militant and rightwing order (so militant they were suppressed for a while) to being "secretly behind Communism."
Oh come on. St. Francis did love animals. There is way too much evidence for that, He was not however a worshiper of "Mother Earth".