I noted a story about Siena College in The Gazette today (10/1/09). Seems they're about to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Franciscan Order – today as a matter of fact.
Siena is a Franciscan college. The Franciscans were founded by St. Francis of Assisi, who is known popularly as the patron saint of animals. The college press release notes this as well as noting that St. Francis was dedicated to helping the poor and marginalized.
Regrettably, Siena leaves out a few of the salient facts about St. Francis. They leave out that he turned away from a life of war making, violence and consumerism (he is also known as the ecology saint). St. Francis turned away from a military career, turned down his father's vast fortune and stopped treating women as play toys. He turned away from a life of violence on many levels.
That Siena in particular and the Catholic Church in general should leave these defining facts about St. Francis behind should come as no surprise. When you host an ROTC on a Franciscan campus as Siena does (and many other Franciscan and Catholic colleges do as well) you have to have some way of presenting yourself as morally coherent and one way to do that is to leave out facts such as Francis was a peacenik, and one of the best ever.
Siena won't let Planned Parenthood have an office on campus, but they will permit an ROTC. Apparently aborting a person before they're born is a sin – bombing them (or killing them in any other manner during a state-sanctioned war) after they're born is not.
Even the Secular Franciscans Order (SFO) have sold out on the peace issue that was so central to the life of this saint. They dropped their rule on nonviolence some years ago.
I asked a friend who is an SFO about Siena having an ROTC. He responded that the SFOs had been trying to address this issue for years without any success. When I learned that SFOs had given up the order's commitment to nonviolence, I understood why they were without success. My first thought was maybe taking the log out of their eye might help them get the splinter out of the college's eye.
I wear a St. Francis medal given to me by this very dear and treasured friend (it was blessed by Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ) and it reminds me of what I am trying to be and how I am trying to live my life. On my very best days it is half baked.
I have been trying for 10 years to become a member of the SFOs, and for whatever reason it just has not happened – much to my disappointment and sadness. Maybe the holy spirit has been saying to me, “I have other plans for you.”
I confess to getting irritated when my plans and God's plan for me don't jibe. I think this is also known as the sin of pride.
St. Francis is not the only peacemaker to be dissed by Catholic colleges and the church.
The departments of military science at Lewis University are located in the Dorothy Day hall. (Dorothy Day was an ardent peacemaker and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement). To learn more about her click HERE.
Marquette University (another Catholic college), home of the Dorothy Day and Catholic Worker archives, is one of only two universities in the state of Wisconsin (the other being UW-Madison) to be a host school for all three departments of the military -- Army, Air Force and Navy (Marines). Marquette University is a military base for Army, Air Force and Navy and Marines, actually teaches on campus war and military values. This is an affront to the spirit and work of the Gospels, the Catholic Church and the Catholic Worker movement and frankly Christianity in general – not to mention Jesus.
As someone else said, “God forgive us.”
“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?” -- Dorothy Day
