Near the azaleas in front of the first house we owned, my wife and I put a small statue of St. Francis, his arms holding a basket of birdseed. When we sold the house two years later, we forgot to take the statue. For the next several years, whenever we would drive by, we would contemplate whether we should have one of our kids dash into the yard and retrieve our Francis.
Richard Rohr and Jon Sweeney, the authors of two new books on St. Francis, would be united in this advice to us: forget the statue. “Birdbath Franciscanism,” as Rohr calls it, is only preventing you from learning from the real St. Francis. And now that we have a pope named Francis, Rohr and Sweeney believe there’s no better time to rediscover the real St. Francis and his relevance for today. Each author sets out to paint a portrait of the real Francis’s spiritual vision.
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