The Reason For Francis 's Resignation

The clergy’s function was to administer the sacraments, and if those services were needed by the afflicted faithful as they invariably were, clergy violated charity by fleeing. If it was the duty of a clergy member to visit the sick, it was a scandal and a sin if that person fled the plague. But if a clergy members duty did not necessarily deal with the plague, they were allowed to flee. If a clergy

He got his first chance when Assisi declared war on their longtime enemy, the nearby town of Perugia. When Francis was just barely twenty years old, he fought in the war between Assisi and Perugia and was taken prisoner. Most of the troops from Assisi were butchered in the fight. Only those wealthy enough to expect to be ransomed were taken prisoner. At last Francis was among the nobility like he always wanted to be, but chained in a harsh, dark dungeon. All accounts say that he never lost his happy manner in that horrible place. Finally, after a year in the dungeon, he was ransomed. Strangely, the experience didn't seem to change him. He gave himself to partying with as much joy and abandon as he had before the battle. That period shaped the young man's soul and the weaker his body became, the more deeply his sense of charity and love towards others took root in him. By the time he returned to Assisi, he was seriously ill. His mother's loving care and time itself brought him back to health, but the carefree life he had led before and which had started again by now, seemed empty to him. Driven by his dreams of being a soldier, he decided to follow a condottiere to the southern region of Apulia, but when he had gotten as far as Spoleto, the Lord appeared to him one night in a dream and ordered him to turn back. The words of God echoed in his mind like a summons. This marked the beginning of his gradual

The Catholic Church during the early 16th Century was rooted throughout Europe. The Church influenced every country and its respective monarchs through the Church’s wealth and power. The Catholic Church placed a tight hold on the general populace with individuals who went against the Church being branded as heretics and excommunicated. The wealth and power of the Church eventually caused the quality of the clergy to deteriorate. Priests became corrupt and subjected to their physical desires. They frequented taverns, gambled and kept mistresses. The reputation of the clergy were horrid as the general populace was relieved that “their priest [kept] a mistress” because it “[secured] their wives from seduction” The knowledge of the clergy degenerated as well as they were no longer required to learn and teach the Holy Scriptures because the Church dictated their actions. The pinnacle of the Church’s corruption was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence was the “extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment” sold by priests as a temporary relief from sins. The indulgences were then sold to the general populace for money as the monetization of a priest’s services. Johannes Tetzel was a prominent preacher of indulgences who relied on the money from the sales to subsidize the rebuilding of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. The corrupt sales did not go unnoticed as Martin Luther, in an effort to stop the corruption of the Church, posted the 95 Theses on the door of a Castle

After years of preaching, Saint Francis of Assisi returned to his native country to find that his brotherhood had expanded to 5,000 people. Although it was a group of faithful followers of God, they were constantly arguing and debating about who should be the leader, completely disregarding the fact that Francis was the one who changed them all. He new he would not be pointed a position in the brotherhood, but was fine with the idea of just being a brother.

Voltaire satirizes the clergy as consisting of pleasure-seeking, deceitful individuals masquerading as a holy priesthood. A reason for this behavior is that during this time, the clergy was the only way for younger sons to lead a respectable life. As a result, according to Friar Giroflée “jealousy, discord, and rage inhabit the monastery” and at the end of the day he “wants to smash his head against the dormitory walls and all my colleagues are in the same state” (Voltaire 74). Because many people within the clergy don’t want to be there, many of them engage in corrupt behavior. They engage in romantic relationships despite their vow to be celibate (Voltaire 24) (Voltaire 72). A member of the clergy preys preys on Candide when he is dying in Paris. The clergy member tries to convince Candide to pay a large sum of money to receive absolution for his sins (Voltaire 59-60). Requiring payment in exchange for absolution is corrupt behavior on the part of the Catholic Church.

Because Francis wanted to die, while he was in the war, he jumped on top of a grenade. The grenade didn’t kill him but instead left him extremely deformed, making him hate himself even more than he already did. Francis not only blamed himself for the events leading up to this point, but he also blamed Larry LaSalle. After the war, Francis came back to Frenchtown with the mission to kill Larry for ruining his and Nicole’s life. On page 1 Francis talks about his deformity, “My name is Francis Joseph Cassavant and I have just returned to Frenchtown in Monument and the war is over and I have no face.” Francis jumped on top of a grenade thinking it would kill him while also saving the other people near it when it exploded, but it did not kill him. Francis also said, “So I offer up Our Father and Hail Mary and Glory Be for Larry LaSalle. Then I am filled with guilt and shame, knowing that I have just prayed for the man I am going to kill.” (Cormier 8) Because Francis survived the war, he had nothing left in life. He lost the girl he loved, his family had already been dead, and now he had no face. The war was his plan out of life, but it didn’t work the way he wanted it to. Since he had nothing left he had a new mission. Francis no longer had any loved ones to shame by killing himself, so his plan was to kill the man that ruined his life, then kill himself. Finally, on page 113 the

Voltaire directs this example of the Church, as it was an officer of the Inquisition who was responsible for the sentencing. The inanity of the whole situation, as well as the completely unnecessary drastic results that it had, makes the Church appear to be an authority that is unreliable to make sensible decisions, or rule over people. This irrationality is again portrayed through Pangloss and the Reverend Father. The Reverend Father bathed in front of a Musselman, unknowing “that it was a major crime for a Christian to be found naked” (105) with one, and ended up being tried for it. Pangloss was similarly tried, because he took too long to give a girl back the flowers that she had dropped. Both of these men, as a result of committing these simple wrongdoings, are beaten and forced into slavery, destined to spend the rest of their days as galley slaves. The crimes themselves were so small and nonsensical that the fact that they were punished at all, much less so harshly for them, is unjustifiable. Voltaire uses the unfairness and utter ludicrousness of the situation to challenge whether government should be trusted with the fate of its people. Voltaire accentuates traditional authority’s ignorance.

The 17th century French aristocrat Michel de Montaigne lived in a tumultuous world. With the spark of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, the fire spread rapidly to France. The nation divided against itself. The rebellious protestant Huguenots and the traditional staunch Catholics both viewed the other group as idolatrous heretics in time when that crime could justify execution. Consequently, Catholic monarchs throughout Europe felt the impending threat to their reigns, too, because if they supposedly ruled through divine right, what would change concerning the support of their subjects? After the peace-making Edict of Nantes, rehashing the religious conflicts of the century was forbidden, but seeing his country—and even his own family—torn apart, how could one refrain from comment? So in his writings, Montaigne has to write around his actual subjects. This isn’t to say, however, that he conveyed none of his ideas directly. Montaigne criticizes the cultural belief in a correct way of life, opposing the idea with a more relativistic viewpoint, though the way in which he presents it, as mere musings in personal correspondence, fails to effectively convince his readers.

Giovanni Bernardone, more widely known as Francis of Assisi, was a Catholic friar that founded the Franciscan Order in the early thirteenth century. The Franciscan Order, under the spiritual guidance and teachings of Francis and his disciples, became one of the largest sects of the Catholic church today. Francis’ teachings brought about a reform in the Catholic church that changed ideas on grace and salvation of the Christian

Leadership styles include democratic, autocratic, laissez-faire as well as servant leaders. Of the varied styles, servant leadership is the most appealing and interesting to study as it draws attention to the servant leader, “as one who is a servant first” (Greenleaf, 1977). Similarly, Spears and Lawrence (2002) have suggested that at its core, servant leadership is a long-term, transformational approach to life and work (p. 4). Over the years, many leaders have emerged and because of their actions, performance, and traits they are seen as servant leaders for example: Pope Francis, also known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

Once again, Francis was faced with the fear of humiliation. If he was excommunicated then he would be greeted by everyone with an,"I told you so. " He would be unable to practice his faith which he had given up so much for. However, all of this was done for the overwhelming good, which was to reform the church and bring it back to its humble beginnings in order to reflect the early life of Jesus. Francis also showed wise judgement by using his conscience to determine that what he was doing was worth the risk of being excommunicated, because this was something that was a huge issue in the

Francis, caused many problems for the church. The monks encroached on the clergy’s territories. People, instead of giving or donating money to the church for their confessions or prayers, were paying the mendicant monks for those same services. The monks, who were constantly on the move, were able to reach many places and many people allowing them to make money in many different places. This movement gave them a steady flow of prayers to give and confessions to hear, at a price of course, allowing them to make economic advancements. In “Preste, Ne Monke, Ne Yit Chanoun” the narrator warned the reader to “be war that no frer ham shryfe, nauther loude ne still” (75-76), that they should not give the travelling monks any type of confession, neither publically nor privately. He also stated that the monks, “thai travele yerne and bysily, to brynge doun the clergye” (121-122), wanted to bring down the clergy and in turn bring down the already established religious social order in order to raise themselves within the

The Friar is like the Monk, and the Prioress. The Friar is not that faithful religious figure. His sins are all the more guilty because friars are more than any other religious group, they pledged to a life of poverty. Back in medieval England, friars could be licensed both to beg in particular regions, and to earn money by hearing or telling the sacraments. Since the friars were not able to own property the licenses are the only thing supporting them. There are a few stereotypes about friars, one was that there would raveled around seducing women. Another stereotype about the friars was that they were crafty at soliciting donations that they could convince a widow to give away her last penny, moreover, and that they would earn far more than

Matthew Lewis’s The Monk, published in 1796, depicts the Catholic Church in Madrid as the victim of religious perversion caused by the pride and lust of its leaders. The events of the novel, including the monk Ambrosio’s surrender to temptation, leading to the rape and murder of innocent Antonia, as well as Agnes’s imprisonment by the vain Prioress of St. Clare’s Convent, serve to emphasize the lack of true religious devotion in the city of Madrid. However, despite the shocking events of the novel, the city had already fallen prey to temptation, and had ultimately strayed from the path of the Church long before these new atrocities took place.

Medieval Sourcebook: The Rule of the Franciscan Order is a source found at Fordham University online sourcebooks. The source has as the main focus “The Rule of the Franciscan Order”. It gives details in regards to the history of the founding of the order and what was the major contribution of St. Francis in establishing “the order of the lesser brothers”. St. Francis was the lead figure which made him a venerable personality in the Middle Ages. The Franciscan order was founded by St. Francis of Assisi. Although there were other movements created at the time, almost unwittingly Francis became the leader of this Christian movement which focused on the love of God, poverty and a cheerful fraternity. Before the founding the Order Francis had renounced all his father’s assets and recognized only the fatherhood of God. From the beginning, St. Francis did not intended to be a role model or a venerable personality; he only desired and decided to consistently live an option, his vocation to poverty.