Excerpt #32: the taming of Saint Francis

You know you have a problem when Saint Francis is remembered primarily as someone holding a rabbit, preaching to birds. Holding rabbits and preaching to birds is a good thing, but you can forget that he was about reforming the church by challenging the presumptions about wealth. I am reminded of Dorothy Day’s response when it was suggested to her that she was saint: “you are not going to get rid of me that easily.”

Stanley Hauerwas, in conversation with Romand Coles, in Christianity, Democracy and the Radical Ordinary