Author Description

The authors - Conrad Harkins, David Knowles, Jacques le Goff, Paul Sabatier, C.N.L. Brooke, Yves Congar, Eugene Martin, Cuthbert Hess, Friedrich Heiler, Ray Petry, Cajetan Esser and Pius XI - of the articles in this book do not represent one position or one point of view. They are theologians and historians; English, French, German; Catholic and Protestant; Franciscan, Dominican and Benedictine; religious and lay. Since all are 20th century authors, they have all benefited from, and, in some instances contributed to, the twentieth century's revival of interest in the study of St. Francis and the significance of the movement he founded.<br/><br/>Any appreciation of St. Francis must first be an appreciation for this personality. Judgments about him have veered sharply. Voltaire and Henry Hallam thought him a pious lunatic. One modern author attributes total originality to him in his following of Christ. the authors of these essays offer more balanced judgments. They show Francis influencing and being influenced by his time, and transcending it, and why he can speak effectively to the men and women of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.