Saints, Church History, Religious, Religion & Spirituality, Religious Studies 

In Reluctant saint, Donald Spoto shows us a Saint Francis who transcends the image of Francis familiar to even the least religious among us. Spoto's unprecedented access to unexplored archives and the saint's own unpublished letters help reveal how Francis pioneered an entirely new historical movement, one that eventually slipped from his grasp. Spoto highlights Francis's position within the ecclesiastical, political, and social forces of medieval Italy in all its violence, color, and mystery. It was a time of crisis with a craving for reform and for a deeper, simpler, more personal faith--yet concern for the common good, and for the poor and sick, was virtually unknown. A key part of the revolution Francis brought about was his insistence that such concern lay at the heart of the Gospel. Reluctant saint portrays a life that has captured the hearts and minds of millions over the centuries. 

Publisher Comments
"Don't make a saint of me," Francis of Assisi told a friend-even as his charisma and holiness were dazzling his contemporaries and generating a legend that has lasted almost a millennium. In Reluctant Saint, Donald Spoto, author of the acclaimed The Hidden Jesus, shows us a Saint Francis who transcends the image of Francis familiar to even the least religious among us: wealthy profligate, soldier, businessman, preacher, defender of the poor, mystic-and, later, a lodestar to ecologists and animal rights activists. Spoto's unprecedented access to unexplored archives and the saint's own unpublished letters help reveal how Francis pioneered an entirely new historical movement, one that eventually slipped from his grasp.
Spoto highlights Francis's position within the ecclesiastical, political, and social forces of medieval Italy in all its violence, color, and mystery. It was, like our own, a time of crisis with a craving for reform and for a deeper, simpler, more personal faith-yet concern for the common good, and for the poor and sick, was virtually unknown. A key part of the revolution Francis brought about was his insistence that such concern lay at the heart of the Gospel. Reluctant Saint portrays a life that has captured the hearts and minds of millions over the centuries.

About the Author
Donald Spoto, author of The Hidden Jesus, taught theology, Christian mysticism, and biblical literature at the university level for twenty years. His other eighteen books include internationally bestselling biographies of Alfred Hitchcock, Laurence Olivier, Tennessee Williams, and Ingrid Bergman. 

Genre/Form: Biographies
Biography
Additional Physical Format: Online version:
Spoto, Donald, 1941-
Reluctant saint.
New York : Viking Compass, 2002
(OCoLC)698035409
Named Person: Francis, of Assisi Saint; Francis, of Assisi Saint
Material Type: Biography, Secondary (senior high) school
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Donald Spoto

ISBN: 0670031283 9780670031283
OCLC Number: 50671901
Description: xix, 256 pages ; 25 cm
Contents: 1181-1187 --
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About the author.
Responsibility: Donald Spoto.