We can say, without fear of error, that Saint Francis of Assisi was not a Saint whose greatness could be comparable to the value of a product placed on sale or offered with a rebate in Large Stores. Saint Francis unquestionably shines with his own light among the Lives of the Saints of the Church.

            I have always been suspicious of products that are on special offer or on sale. Whatever they say, a price reduction always runs parallel with a cut in quality. Trade worldwide does not give away anything.

            The law of supply and demand is perhaps the first to be learned in the Science of Economics. The price of the products inexorably depends on it. A supply of goods in bulk quantity is usually due to poor quality, or to an overabundance of the product offered, which makes it easy to be acquired and, therefore, of little importance. If, however, the product is very scarce and the demand abundant, the price rises; and, oppositely, as the former decreases, the second increases. If diamonds were to become as abundant as potatoes or tomatoes, they would undoubtedly cease to be so prized and so eagerly sought.

            Not even the History of Christian Spirituality can escape the law of supply and demand. It is not surprising, therefore, that as the number of Saints in the Church, ever since Vatican Council II, has increased exponentially (and maybe more) in number, the appreciation and devotion of the Faithful for them have declined and almost disappeared. John Paul II alone canonized and beatified more Saints than all the other Popes throughout the History of the Church put together. In this way, devotion to the Saints, like so many things in Catholicism, is history – a common and current expression by which we mean that something is defunct. In this regard, it may be said that the Council has been the great archivist of obsolete things in the attic of useless junk.

            Devotion to the Saints was always something very peculiar to and hopeful for the Christian People. Saints were admired as heroes and true titans, both because of their love for Jesus Christ and because of their testimonial value before the world. The Faithful invoked them as intercessors before God and saw them as role models. In one way or another, the Saints have always been the subject of fervent admiration. Cities, towns, villages, and even the most humble hamlets have their Patron Saints, whom the people frequently resorted to in all their needs. The feasts and the commemorations of the Saints were also causes for joy and fun among the locals, all of whom took great pride in being named after one of them.

            Things changed, however, from the time when winter seemed to loom upon the Church. Now almost everyone has a brother, or a cousin, or a relative, or at least an acquaintance who has been canonized; or perhaps a neighbor who lived two floors up, with whom one often started brief elevator-conversations. Someone will say that I am exaggerating, I know; and it is true. But that person must at least concede to me that there is a lot of truth in all that I have said.

            For, indeed, even here, the gold coin, precious and rare, has been replaced by common currency circulating in the hands of everyone. The proof that an overabundance of the product has decreased its quality is also evident: the draconian suppression of the requirements to be followed in the process of canonization. We could compare the process in place before the Council with the current one; the result would be impressive for anyone who would bother to find out. There is very clear and easily obtained official information that proves it.

            As for the required miracles, the process no longer looks so much for the overwhelming clarity of their reality as for the importance attributed to other elements. We can make mention here, for example, of practical and political criteria of convenience, pastoral and ecumenical usefulness, etc., etc.

            In this regard, the figure of the Seraphim of Assisi is something clearly exceptional. Like all great Saints, the story of his life is full of such brilliant and, by the same token, sometimes such strange insights as only the great men that Humanity has known may provide.

            It is for this reason that Saint Francis was considered in his time slightly less (or slightly more) than a madman. And even in our own time, after eight centuries, he is still misunderstood, albeit admired. He had the brilliant idea of writing a Constitution – the Regula (Rule) – for the members of his own Order which followed the Gospel to the letter, without further commentaries; that is, without subtractions or additions. Does the Gospel by any chance – so reasoned Saint Francis – need any modifications that can ameliorate the teachings of Our Lord?

            Of course the Church – Mater et Magistra – has always mistrusted radicalism. And surely she has a reason for it. A human being who firmly believes in the Gospel and who, on top of that, is determined to practice it as it is becomes a dangerous element. Poverty, for example, as embodied in the evangelical text, is considered impracticable, taken at face value. And this is how it began, the long story (distressing for the Saint) of the various Rules and successive Mitigations. Pope Innocent III, for example, went so far as to tell Saint Francis: This kind of life that you want to embrace seems to me too difficult. When the Church, in the person of Pope Honorius III, appointed Cardinal Hugolino as Cardinal Protector of the Order, it was due, no doubt, to the fact that the ecclesiastical world did not trust Saint Francis. Everybody knew that the Protector was, in reality, a watchman whose responsibility it was to keep at bay the eccentricities of the Saint. But we will talk more amply on this subject later.

            The contradictions that Saint Francis had to suffer, as is so often the case with great men, came to be summarized in the trick that History played on him. Determined as he was to live the Gospel to the letter, he was forced to admit much Mitigation for his Rule.

            His misfortune was, precisely, that the theory of hermeneutics of continuity had not yet been discovered, at least in his time. Our Modern Catholicism would not have had any inconvenience in admitting the claims of the Saint. After all, thanks to this theory, it does not matter how literally one may take the Revealed Word of the Teachings of the Magisterium; one must always take into account that from which everything depends, namely the concrete man and individual who lives in a particular place and at a certain time in History; it is he who interprets them, therefore, according to his own subjective criteria and the historical conditions of the moment, applicable here and now only. The Revealed Word or the Magisterium can say what they want, no problem, for they are liable to be interpreted and adapted to the mentality of the moment. If the Popes of the thirteenth century had known historicism, they would not have had any trouble with some of the claims of Saint Francis.