Scholars Are Reassessing Saint Francis of Assisi

Antiwar protesters hold up St. Francis as an example for peacemakers. During the Crusades, he traveled behind enemy lines, where he made friends with Muslim leaders.

Spiritually inclined environmentalists say prayers to Francis, patron saint of ecology.

And to those who believe drugs, sex and money have corrupted society and weakened the faithful, Francis' story offers a radical but appealing path to God. The son of a wealthy merchant, he gave up his worldly possessions, including the clothes on his back, to humble himself and develop a more intimate relationship with Jesus.

By the end of his life at about 45 years of age, Francis, who was never a priest, had 20,000 followers -- a group that has lived on as the Franciscans.

Kenneth Baxter Wolf, a history professor at Pomona College, is less of an admirer. "There was something about Francis that bugged me for a long time," said Wolf, author of a new book, "The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis of Assisi Reconsidered," which is being released this month.

In his book, Wolf criticizes St. Francis for imitating the poor, an act that brought him adulation, rather than using his resources to alleviate poverty.

For instance, Francis "hung out with lepers to make a statement to his former social class," said Wolf. "This did nothing for the lepers, but everything for Francis."

Wolf contends that Francis' self-imposed poverty concentrated too much on his own relationship with God, not on helping those around him.

The book points up a basic and continuing divide within Christian thinking: Should religiously motivated people focus their efforts on improving their society or on their personal relationships with God?

"The book is not simply an iconoclastic poke in the eye," Wolf said. "The kind of spirituality that Francis represents may be doing more harm than good, and it's time Christians and other admirers of Francis ruminated about that for awhile."

Such criticism isn't likely to bother members of the religious order that Francis founded, said Friar Francisco Nahoe of the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in San Francisco.

"At least Professor Wolf has made an attempt to treat seriously the life and activities of a remarkable man," Nahoe said.