Quote:
Originally Posted by KillarneyRose
I love Francis I (even though I was originally pulling for John Paul III) because Francis of Assisi is my favorite saint (Make me a Channel of Your Peace is my alltime favorite hymn).
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And "All Creatures of our God and King," which is a paraphrase of Francis's
Canticle of the Sun, is mine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SWTXBelle
"Pope Francis chose his name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi because he is a lover of the poor, said Vatican deputy spokesman Thomas Rosica."
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One thing that came to mind as I thought about the name is another aspect of St. Francis -- the part where he had the vision in San Damiano church in which the icon of Jesus on the cross spoke to him and said "Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." Though at first Francis took this literally and started working to repair the church, he and Franciscans since understood it was a command to work to renew the Church. As Pope Benedict XVI described it, "At that moment St. Francis was called to repair the small church, but the ruinous state of the building was a symbol of the dramatic and disquieting situation of the Church herself. At that time the Church had a superficial faith which did not shape or transform life, a scarcely zealous clergy, and a chilling of love."
This was the aspect that analysts, including a spokesman from the Vatican Press Office, were talking about on CNN last night. They thought this was the real message behind the name, and they thought the choice of the name "Francis" was much bigger news than the first pope from the Americas -- they saw it as
the big news of the day (aside from the election itself, of course). As John Allen, the CNN analyst who called the choice "stunning" put it, the Catholic Church has always had two faces -- the institutional, somewhat majestic face exemplified by the papacy, and the humble, charitable, down-in-the-trenches face, which St. Francis perhaps more than anyone else exemplifies. Sometimes, he said, the two faces are closer together, sometimes they are far apart. But the choice by a pope to use the name "Francis," he said, signaled a desire that the "institutional face" mirror the humble, charitable face. Per Allen, "The new pope is sending a signal that this will not be business as usual."
Hybrid Mode
