Thursday, October 3, 2013

Matthew Fox, Letters to Pope Francis: "Let's Be Honest--Francis Never Attended a Seminary"



On this feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, another excerpt from Matthew Fox's book Letters to Pope Francis:

And let us be honest--Francis never attended a seminary. Could he have kept his soul intact, his nature-fed experience of the Cosmic Christ if he had attended a seminary? Jesus also never attended a seminary. My guess is that both would have been expelled for being too right-brained, too eager to challenge culture and religion (p. 88).

The graphic: a photograph of the habit worn by Francis of Assisi, taken by Brazilian photographer, painter, and composer Ricardo Frantz (Tetraktys) and online at Wikimedia Commons.

Addendum, 30 December 2013: after having seen this habit a few weeks ago on exhibit at St. Francis's shrine in Assisi, I'm now fairly certain this is not an original habit of Francis's, but a habit (from a later period) "similar to" one worn by Francis. The label on the habit in the exhibit at Assisi says as much.

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