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The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition: Sustaining Hope Amid a Climate Emergency...
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The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition: Sustaining Hope Amid a Climate Emergency and Political Polarization

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 August 2022) | Viewed by 6328

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Dawn M. Nothwehr

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Historical & Doctrinal Studies, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, IL 60615, USA
Interests: environmental ethics through the lens of Franciscan theology; the effects of global climate change on poor people; the religion/science dialogue; the ethics of power and racial justice; fundamental moral theology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In 2015 Pope Francis promulgated Laudato Si’ – On Care for Our Common Home, and in 2020, Fratelli Tutti - On Fraternity and Social Friendship. Each documents drew deeply on the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition as it provided great insight and wisdom toward resolving one of two global existential problems: life-threatening political divisiveness and a climate emergency.[1]

This special issue invites writers to address one aspect of either existential problem. Authors should select one Franciscan scholar (from any point in over 800-year tradition) and utilize a particular primary text by that scholar to address their chosen issue. To wit, no literature exists that utilizes key Franciscan figures other than Francis, Clare, Bonaventure, or Scotus for discussing these two issues.

Though Franciscan intellectual works usually are multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary – science, philosophy, theology, ethics, spirituality, aesthetics, arts, music, scripture, anthropology – and more, authors should be careful to focus their thesis. How does your scholar and her/his text bring hope, i.e., inform, enlighten, or provide a strategy to resolve political divisiveness or climate emergency?

The Franciscan intellectual tradition is characterized by core values and religious beliefs especially conversion, peacemaking, divine love and freedom, the primacy of Christ, the centrality of the Incarnation, Christ crucified, the sacramentality of creation, the goodness of the world, a wholistic understanding of the human person as imago Dei, emphasis on Gospel poverty and humility, and the development of affectus.[2] The “common thread” sustaining this tradition is the person and vernacular theology (ex beneficio, not ex officio),[3] of Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), “the Patron of Ecology.”[4] Three major themes in Francis’ vernacular theology irrevocably link Franciscan spirituality, theology and ethics: the humanity of Christ, the mystery of God as generous love, and the sense of creation as family.[5]

Significantly, St. Francis asserted the life-sustaining virtue of mutual obedience among all the creatures.  The obedient one “is subject and submissive to all persons in the world, and not only to human beings, but even to all beasts and wild animals so that they may do whatever they want with that person, in as much as it has been given to them from above by the Lord.”[6]  Further, Francis denounced human abuse of all other created entities.[7] Ungrateful people use other creatures with impunity to meet daily survival needs, failing to recognize the Creator of such creatures as gifts and blessings.

Today Earth’s inhabitants languish at the edge of ecological collapse amid conflicts at all levels. To such conditions the Franciscan intellectual tradition – especially its theological, spiritual, and ethical aspects – can bring mediation and/or resolution, and thus, hope. The Franciscan tradition is:

  • inclined toward action
  • demands human and other kinds to live sufficiently, with dignity and integrity
  • elicits love for God, and all neighbors
  • evokes nonviolence implemented by personal discourse, dialogue, and encounters
  • sustains global sufficiency economics “enough” enabling health and dignity.
  • empowers all voices to be heard and their needs met.
  • embrace creation’s beauty and creativity through the arts.
  • promotes a slow-paced contemplative lifestyle allowing
  • synchronizes well with current systems theory (integral ecology)
  • promotes and implements border crossing relationships among all kinds of “others”

Hope is endemic in the Franciscan tradition; similarly embraced and defined by the world’s Abrahamic Religions and complexity scientists.[8] These groups embrace “a moral attitude” of commitment to truth; “an epistemological attitude” of “deep knowledge of people’s worldviews and motivations” and “a psychological attitude” stressing “a vision of a positive future and strategies for achievement.[9]  

Hope is not whimsically optimistic concerning the “Climate Emergency.” Hope is grounded in truth – empirically known and rooted in wisdom; magnanimous, building on the innermost desires (spiritual and psychological) of the human heart to move forward, amid difficulty, with truth and courage. Complexity science asserts that, while our complex world does not allow us to know positive outcomes will occur in the future, simultaneously, neither does it permit us to “know that positive outcomes will not be possible.”[10] For Jews, Christians, and Muslims there is a cosmic generosity that is accessible to humans – named “God,” for others – e.g., complexity scientists, the vitality of life itself.

NOTES

1 About Commission on the Franciscan Intellectual-Spiritual Tradition, Who we are, and why we do what we do? https://www.franciscantradition.org/about-us.

2 Ilia Delio, “The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition: Contemporary Concerns,” in Elise Saggau, ed., The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition, CFIT/ESC-OFM Series No. 1, Washington Theological Union Symposium Papers, 2001, (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2002), 1-19.

3 Bernard McGinn, Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics, (New York, Continuum, 1983), 6-7 and his The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism – 1200-1350, (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 21. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian,” Origins 20/8 (July 5, 1990):119. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Doctrinal Responsibilities: Approaches to Promoting Cooperation and Resolving Misunderstandings Between Bishops and Theologians,” Origins 19/7 (June 29, 1989): 101. 

4 See Ioannes Paulus Pp. II, Litterae Apostolicae, Inter Sanctoss, Franciscus Assisiensis Caelestis Patronus Oecologiae Cultorum Eligitur, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/la/apost_letters/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19791129_inter-sanctos.html.

5 John 14:6-9 and St. Francis, Admonition I:1-4 in Regis Armstrong and Ignatius Brady, Francis and Clare (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), 25-26. Zachary Hayes, “Christ, Word of God and Exemplar of Humanity,” 6.

6 Francis of Assisi, Salutation to the Virtues 14-18, in Armstrong and Brady, Francis and Clare, 151-52.

7 Mirror of Perfection, in Marion A. Habig, Omnibus of Sources (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1972), 1236.

8 Towards a Global Ethic, https://parliamentofreligions.org/program-areas/global-ethic. Thomas Homer-Dixon, Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril, (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2020). Daniel C. Maguire, The Moral Core of Judaism and Christianity: Reclaiming the Revolution, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 194-207.  Fatemeh Bahmani, Mitra Amini, Seyed Ziaeddin Tabei1, Mohamad Bagher Abbasi, “The Concepts of Hope and Fear in the Islamic Thought: Implications for Spiritual Health,” Religion and Health (2018) 57:57–71, DOI 10.1007/s10943-016-0336-2.   Dawn M. Nothwehr, OSF, “A Model for Muslim-Christian Dialogue on Care for the Earth: Vatican II, Francis and the Sultan, and Pope Francis,” In Catholicism Engaging Other Faiths- Vatican II and its Impact, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, ed. Vladimir Latinovic, Gerald Mannion, and Jason Welle, OFM, (Cham, Switzerland, 2018) 265-284.

9 Homer-Dixon, Commanding Hope, 84.

10 Ibid., 99-100.

Prof. Dr. Dawn M. Nothwehr
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • climate emergency
  • social friendship
  • discourse, dialogue, and encounter
  • sufficiency economics
  • beauty and creativity
  • contemplative lifestyle
  • complexity theory
  • Abrahamic religions
  • Franciscan theology, spirituality, ethics
  • comanding hope

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

9 pages, 230 KiB  
Article
Healing Memory: A Bonaventurian Response to Pope Francis’ Fratelli Tutti
by Laura Currie
Religions 2022, 13(9), 819; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13090819 - 2 Sep 2022
Viewed by 1211
Abstract
In his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis identifies a need to “heal open wounds,” as well as a “need for peacemakers … prepared to work boldly and creatively to initiate processes of healing and renewed encounter.” This paper aims to address the [...] Read more.
In his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis identifies a need to “heal open wounds,” as well as a “need for peacemakers … prepared to work boldly and creatively to initiate processes of healing and renewed encounter.” This paper aims to address the Holy Father’s call to “heal wounds” within our societies by first identifying memory as the primary domain that needs healing, and then proposing the wisdom of St. Bonaventure as providing the remedy. Bonaventure’s Itinerarium Mentis in Deum reveals how affectus acts as a “healing agent” upon memory as the soul ascends to God; if understood primarily as a “healing journey”, Bonaventure’s Itinerarium can shed significant light on the “processes of healing” so desperately needed today. This paper will follow each of the three major “steps” in the soul’s journey to God, as identified in Bonaventure’s Itinerarium, by identifying the role of memory in the first step; the role of affectus and its interplay with memory in the second step; and how affectus acts as a healing agent upon memory in the third step. Concluding thoughts will be offered regarding how this path given by Bonaventure can provide a foundation for building peace in the world today. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition: Sustaining Hope Amid a Climate Emergency and Political Polarization)
18 pages, 342 KiB  
Article
Waste, Exclusion, and the Responsibility of the Rich: A Franciscan Critique of Early Capitalist Europe
by Dana Bultman
Religions 2022, 13(9), 818; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13090818 - 2 Sep 2022
Viewed by 1490
Abstract
Francisco de Osuna’s Fifth Spiritual Alphabet of 1542, subtitled Consolation for the Poor and Warning for the Rich, is a Spanish text on economic inequality in Western Europe. Osuna treats the life-threatening political divisions of his day, including those intended to reduce [...] Read more.
Francisco de Osuna’s Fifth Spiritual Alphabet of 1542, subtitled Consolation for the Poor and Warning for the Rich, is a Spanish text on economic inequality in Western Europe. Osuna treats the life-threatening political divisions of his day, including those intended to reduce people to objects of uselessness and slavery, with spiritual and practical advice that defines free will as true wealth and focuses on the responsibility of the rich for producing poverty. I examine Osuna’s theology and sensorial, embodied imagery in dialogue with Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Social Friendship (2020), particularly Francis’ concept of a “beautiful polyhedral reality”, through the lens of twenty-first century decolonial feminist and social theory. I argue that Osuna’s work is a compelling Franciscan precedent for combating avarice and indifference that is best understood through scholarly perspectives critical of the legacies of patriarchy and colonialism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition: Sustaining Hope Amid a Climate Emergency and Political Polarization)
10 pages, 235 KiB  
Article
Sister Death and the Care of All Creation: A Franciscan Argument for Green Burial
by Darleen Pryds
Religions 2022, 13(9), 816; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13090816 - 1 Sep 2022
Viewed by 1705
Abstract
Since Jessica Mitford’s 1963 scathing critique of the mortuary business in the United States, there has been an ongoing debate about how best to honor and dispose of the dead in ways that do not exploit people. However, the backlash to predatory mortuary [...] Read more.
Since Jessica Mitford’s 1963 scathing critique of the mortuary business in the United States, there has been an ongoing debate about how best to honor and dispose of the dead in ways that do not exploit people. However, the backlash to predatory mortuary practices led to an impersonal and detached process culminating in online purchasing of post-mortem services. More recently, this discussion has expanded to consider the resulting psychological and spiritual detachment around end-of-life, and a return to natural, simple, and fully engaged burial practices, known as “Green Burial”, are being reintroduced and practiced. While many Catholic cemeteries still call the use of embalming and concrete vaults “traditional burial”, these expensive and unnecessary practices are only 150 years old and have significantly affected the natural environment. A different “traditional burial” is possible when using the model of Francis of Assisi himself who offers a more intimate model of dying and death by embracing his own death and calling it, “Sister Death”. This article will use the interdisciplinary approach of Christian Spirituality to explore the Franciscan concern with creation and link it to the burgeoning practice of Green Burial. A discussion of a Franciscan congregation that initiated the practice for their own sisters, the FSPA in La Cross, Wisconsin, will offer a concrete example of rationale, best practices, and challenges for those considering this as a personal option or as a community endeavor. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition: Sustaining Hope Amid a Climate Emergency and Political Polarization)
11 pages, 226 KiB  
Article
Fraternity as Natural Being
by Joachim Ostermann, OFM
Religions 2022, 13(9), 812; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13090812 - 31 Aug 2022
Viewed by 1182
Abstract
In a scientifically understood world, making sense of natural being is a challenge. This is particularly acute when knowledge of nature impinges on human autonomy. I present two examples: The legitimacy of opposing abortion on account of “potential life”, and the legitimacy of [...] Read more.
In a scientifically understood world, making sense of natural being is a challenge. This is particularly acute when knowledge of nature impinges on human autonomy. I present two examples: The legitimacy of opposing abortion on account of “potential life”, and the legitimacy of mandatory vaccination during a pandemic. I then explore the concept of fraternity in the writings of St. Francis at the example of the Rule of 1221 and the Canticle of Creatures. In conclusion, I show how the concept of fraternity as applied in Franciscan life allows us to reconcile the relationship between natural being and human autonomy through relationships of mutual care. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition: Sustaining Hope Amid a Climate Emergency and Political Polarization)
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