FROM PROFESSOR ALESSANDRO BARBERO A SAINT FRANCIS "UNDER THE CRUST". WHEN HOLINESS IS COMBINED WITH HISTORY

The historian Alessandro Barbero is not a Catholic, he is a layman, but it tells more truths about Saint Francis than have been heard by devout Catholics about the life of the Poverello. This in the same way as, in cinematography, the director Liliana Cavani represented the Francesco closest to reality, atheist is communist, through a young and virile Mickey Rourke. With all due respect to the talent and memory of director Franco Zeffirelli, who instead represented a saccharine and completely de-virilized Saint Francis.

- ecclesial news -

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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For a few days I started reading the new book on Saint Francis of Assisi by Professor Alessandro Barbero, a face now known and appreciated not only in the academic field.

Mickey Rourke plays Francis of Assisi in director Liliana Cavani's film (Italy, 1989)

As a historian has successfully undertaken a good activity of dissemination of that subject - history - which has always been a subject of boredom for many during their school days, perhaps more for the methodology with which it was explained and posed to the students than for the object of its study itself.

The merit of this popularizer is undoubtedly that it has brought a large audience closer to history and historical topics, just as the journalist Indro Montanelli did with his books and interviews on the history of Italy which we could define as an investigative story, as only a skilled and expert journalist can do.

The story is teachers of life and learn about the history, the one without ideological coloring, which has many contradictions and black holes, the one not written by the winners alone, that of facts and sources is extremely useful for getting to know ourselves and for knowing how to orient the future and perhaps also to avoid making huge mistakes. But unfortunately this is not always the case.

Until this speech it applies to world wars, we may all agree on the facts of recent history and antiquity, but when the story touches on more particular topics and themes such as hagiography or theology, what happens? well, you have to know how to maintain the right balance between the parts and the disciplines but personally I believe that knowing how to make a good story, and start from a good historical basis regarding the themes covered by hagiography and theology, is extremely important to understand how God is capable of operating in the lives of men, precisely in that human way that is not without contradictions, of slowness, of surprises that apparently contradict a certain devout idea of ​​divine action and sanctity.

Regarding the life of Saint Francis, this reality was evident immediately after his death and in view of his rapid canonization. We, his friars and continuers of his ideals, we perhaps had too much of a conservative concern that led us to see (and to show) Brother Francis as an unattainable model, to the point of considering him - as iconography will then have the opportunity to explain better - a new Christ on earth and this not only because of the gift of the sacred stigmata which were the last seal that the Word of God gave him (cf. Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, XI canto) but also thanks to some biographical colors that the official versions have presented.

Mind you, as moderns we don't want to do any trial Larger caption of Saint Bonaventure who contributed to fixing in the collective memory the image of Saint Francis as essentially mystical and protagonist only of fabulous events which reaffirmed his resemblance to Christ. In that historical moment in the broadest possible sense - for medieval society, for the Catholic Church, for the very survival of the Order of Minors - a hagiographic rather than biographical procedure such as that carried out by Saint Bonaventure was almost obligatory.

Security and stability were sought and with his cunning and intelligence he succeeded in the task. Above all, a model was sought and often this desire led to the deeds of a "holy man" being perfectly described., omitting those parts of normal fragility and humanity which are instead the first to testify to the sanctity of a person if we take into good account the teaching of Saint Gregory the Great: «miracles which do not make holiness but show it» (miracles do not create holiness, however, they are a manifestation or demonstration of it)

Trace a figure of Saint Francis so noble and unattainable it perhaps constituted an unattainable goal for many, plus one legend what a real life; a story that had to be read to warm the heart with good and holy inspirations and moral and religious teachings that are not always truly practicable, distant from the ordinariness of his friars and his devotees.

I think this also contributed to proliferate in the following centuries, of those visions of life of Saint Francis, more accommodating and practicable that have become so dear to an ideological and aligned modernity like ours: the pacifist Francis, ecologist, animal rights activist, vegan, precursor of accommodating interreligious dialogue, pauperist, communist before letter. Visions that are perhaps more viable today but totally false and distant from the real intentions of the Poor Man of Assisi.

As I already had the opportunity to underline in another article of mine (you see WHO) Saint Francis is a person, before a saint, extremely complicated, within an equally complicated historical and ecclesial period, therefore only objective and healthy historical research can reconstitute it within a discourse that tends as much as possible to the truth, to that Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone zero, what can be glimpsed under the crust of many amenities to which it has been owed, obtorto neck, seraphically submit and perhaps even endure.

The merit of the historian Barbero - as well as others who were interested in Saint Francis, I think of Franco Cardini and Chiara Frugoni - it is to describe him as a man inside a very specific story, a tormented man, Lasted, capable of very sweet gestures and unexpected harshness, a man open to transcendence and the contradictions of his time.

The historical reading of Saint Francis it also allows us to grow in the knowledge of a medieval Church which for the Poverello does not constitute a source of scandal unlike the many contemporary movements that fell into heresy and schismatic violence. Pulling Saint Francis by the jacket as a scourge of the customs of the Church - and of the Church as an institutional body - is extremely inappropriate. Others did this and if anything with reason but Saint Francis did not do it, nor did he desire it, for him the Church was that, the best possible existing one because it was so wanted by Christ, therefore not a utopian re-foundation from the bases but a renewal in the inner man who will then have his heart on his side form of life which is expressed with all the passion in the extension of the Regola non bullata.

Saint Francis loves the Catholic Church, his, the one that gives 1182 onwards it will accompany him from his baptism to his burial in the small church of San Giorgio, not another ideal Church. He loves and respects the hierarchy of the Church, from the poorest and morally fragile priests to his bishop of Assisi (Guido) who will witness his undressing, to reach the bishop of Rome (Innocent III and Honorius III) who will confirm him in his intention to live without gloss the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ approving the form of life. Francis is not blind to the facts but has understood that the most effective renewal is personal, it starts from within and that is why he does not judge but lets him and his friars be and become that sign of real change - that good leaven of the Gospel - which is capable of improving the entire Catholic Church. A methodology of ecclesial renewal like that of Saint Francis is still difficult to find in pastoral plans and programs today.

Saint Francis is a lover and lover of adventurous life of the Middle Ages, he dreams of being a knight and sees his friars as knights of Christ without blemish and pure of heart. He knows the amazing and fascinating adventures of Gesture Song and is at the same time a witness to the political-ecclesiastical events that led to the crusades. We note how Francis is not critical of the Church even for calling the crusades. However, he remains a man of the Middle Ages and knows that despite their tragedy, even the Crusades have meaning and merit.. There were several saints who followed him who considered the crusades and their reasons legitimate, they preached to her, among them another famous Franciscan, Bernardino degli Albizzeschi of Massa Marittima, known as San Bernardino da Siena. However, having personally known the cruelties of war, of the battle, of imprisonment, of the wounds and mutilations of his companions, Saint Francis chooses to go to the Sultan by opting for a different choice, not that of weapons but of the Word.

In Egypt before Al-Malik al-Kāmil announces Christ and the Gospel, a very different and more powerful weapon than the sword, a dialogue that does not fall into political correctness but into a decisive invitation to the conversion of the Sultan of Egypt and Syria to let reign that God who brings peace and who gives the peacemaker par excellence. It is not surprising that the Sultan does not feel offended by the words of Saint Francis, we remember that Coptic Christians were already present in Egypt and the Sultan and his court were used to seeing Christians and ministers ordained in the land of Egypt and arguing with them. The act of Saint Francis is not vulgar political propaganda for the Catholic Church but a real invitation to conversion and salvation as several members of the Order of Minors did in Morocco and in other territories of Islamic faith, very often finding martyrdom in the following centuries.

Professor Barbero's book deals with these and other topics, bringing to light an image of Saint Francis that overcomes ideology and makeup from a hagiographic image. The merit is undoubtedly that of being able to get to know an uncomfortable Saint Francis who cannot be categorized within a single vision, its story within the story allows us to appreciate it even more and to return a concrete and vivid image of it.

To conclude, the same theme of poverty that Saint Francis dreams of, marries and recommends is the one that was first achieved with one kenosis of himself as a man who discovers his limit and knows his shaky heart. Material poverty is not the end but the consequence developed over the years of a truer and deeper poverty. In this way we can assimilate Saint Francis to Christ in the humiliation-stripping of a life that apparently seems like a failure in the eyes of the world. After the death of Saint Francis, it is precisely on the theme of spiritual poverty that his sons discuss and begin with the first controversies that will arise in the subsequent reforms.

The poverty of Saint Francis it is taking shape within various real facts of its history: in his physical and mental exhaustion after his imprisonment at the Battle of Collestrada in 1202 which resizes him in his ideals of knighthood. In the encounter with the leper who is the concrete example of the deprivation that every disease imposes on the sick person but is also the clear sign that conversion requires determination and violence to be implemented (cf. Mt 11,12). Until he was rejected and no longer recognized as head of his Order which, extending in prestige to a large part of Europe at the time, could do without him. The modern man who appreciates holy poverty in Saint Francis should be reminded that this is achieved by taking several steps backwards, nullifying itself, looking at one's limits and accepting them with the perfect joy of someone who has been able to put everything in the hands of God.

The historian Alessandro Barbero is not a Catholic, he is a layman, but it tells more truths about Saint Francis than have been heard by devout Catholics about the life of the Poverello. This in the same way as, in cinematography, the director Liliana Cavani represented the Francesco closest to reality, atheist is communist, through a young and virile Mickey Rourke. With all due respect to the talent and memory of director Franco Zeffirelli, who instead represented a saccharine and completely de-virilized Saint Francis.

We wish Alessandro Barbero, secular and non-Catholic, in the wisdom of the passing age, Saint Francis was also an accomplice, can get closer to God and find himself in him, source of all wisdom, all good.

Sanluri, 9 October 2025

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The books of Ivano Liguori, to access the book shop click on the cover

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