The era in which St. Francis of Assisi was active was a time of upheaval known as the Commercial Revolution. People, who had lived in self-sufficiency centered on the manorial system with strong economic ties, naturally came to accept competition amon...
The era in which St. Francis of Assisi was active was a time of upheaval known as the Commercial Revolution. People, who had lived in self-sufficiency centered on the manorial system with strong economic ties, naturally came to accept competition among members under the new proposition of "profit-seeking." This brought prosperity previously unknown, but it also resulted in extreme wealth disparities, conflicts between traditional noble factions and merchants, between cities, and between the Pope and the Emperor, creating a highly chaotic period. At this time, Francis of Assisi chose poverty for himself while everyone else struggled to seize wealth and power. His poverty did not end as merely a personal virtue but was revealed as fraternal love practiced toward brothers and neighbors, and even all creatures, serving as a great exemplar in an era of moral blindness.
Then, how should St. Francis of Assisi's spirituality of poverty be manifested and expressed in the 21st century we live in today? Eight hundred years later, under a neoliberal economic paradigm that takes profit-seeking as an absolute principle and accepts competition between individuals as a matter of course, Pope Francis raises his voice for those suffering amid indiscriminate consumerism and individualism. In this context, his encyclical Fratelli Tutti presents St. Francis of Assisi—a man from the Middle Ages 800 years ago—as a model for our time, when love is growing cold and mutual hatred is spreading.
Therefore, this paper seeks answers on how to express St. Francis of Assisi's spirituality of poverty today by first examining the saint's spirituality and the teachings of the encyclical Fratelli Tutti. It then verifies the connections between the encyclical and the saint's spirituality, analyzing the saint's spirituality of poverty as revealed therein. As a result, it demonstrates that the spirituality of poverty expressed through fraternity in St. Francis of Assisi is not different from the fraternal vision presented in Fratelli Tutti. Accordingly, this paper confirms that the solution to the numerous social problems rampant today lies in individual conversion and love, and it reveals that all human communities in our time must strive toward the model of a family community.