This Franciscan Spirit blog series explores how study and theology impact the lived experience of faith. St. Francis of Assisi was known to caution his brothers from owning books, emphasizing lifestyle over the study of theology. He believed that while knowledge “puffs up,” charity “builds up.” Early in 1222, however, Francis granted permission to St. Anthony of Padua to teach theology. Wrote Francis to Anthony: “It pleases me that you should teach sacred theology to the brothers as long as–in the words of the rule–you ‘do not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion with study of this kind.’” This series explores this tension and potential. What does study and theology look like from a Franciscan perspective? The Q&A below is from Franciscan Media’s interview with Garrett Galvin, OFM, the president of the Franciscan School of Theology, for Ep. 7 of our Off the Page Podcast.
FRANCISCAN MEDIA: How do you see the worlds of academia and Franciscan theology helping to renew society and the Church?
GARRETT GALVIN: Well, as Franciscans, you know, we’re fortunate that we’ve spoken a lot about St. Francis, but of course we’ve got St. Clare, and she gives us a spiritual tradition that kind of builds on Francis. She helps us think more about wisdom literature than St. Francis—about how God is present within our lives in a very profound way. And then we can kind of turn to the doctors of the church in the Franciscan tradition—St. Anthony of Padua, but I would think particularly of St. Bonaventure, and then some of our other great thinkers like Alexander of Hales or John Duns Scotus or Peter John Olivi—all of these people are going to be very much focused on, and this is an academic word, but I’ll say it: praxis. And this is kind of the opposite of theory.
My experience of academia is that there’s a lot of very practical people. All these institutions have to be run, and we have to run them well. And so everyone involved in academia knows the importance of practicality. But I think the Franciscan tradition, you know, in some ways, kind of canonizes praxis and says that whatever solutions we’re coming up with, we have to remember that those are solutions for human fulfillment. Those are solutions for transformation. Those are solutions for ongoing conversion. Those are solutions that help us love God and love our neighbor.
The Franciscan School of Theology is ultimately a school of ministry. We’re training people for ministry. We live in a world right now. And you see lots of different models and lots of kind of solutions, maybe wholesale solutions that involve radical change. But I would say, you know, as a school of theology, a school of ministry, we’re into solutions grounded in patience, charity, and humility. If we’re not training people to be more patient, to be more humble, to be more charitable, we’re going to struggle with [theological study translating to lived experience].
“If we’re not training people to be more patient, to be more humble, to be more charitable, we’re going to struggle with [theological study translating to lived experience].”
FRANCISCAN MEDIA: I love how you brought it back to the practical. I was recently thinking about Francis prohibiting his brothers from owning books and this seeming allergy that he had to knowledge and learning—not learning in a lived sense, but learning in a kind of “knowledge,” book sense. What would your response be to someone who pushes back and says that Francis would not want a Franciscan School of Theology today?
GARRETT GALVIN: Yeah, I think Francis was certainly trying to kind of make a point…I think Francis would be concerned—and I think we should all be concerned—if we’re simply using academics or academia to kind of build up our status. And so I’m sure he saw some of that, and, certainly, I see some of that. I see some of that in myself. And so Francis was speaking with St. Anthony of Padua, a doctor of the church, and he said, “I don’t have a problem with education, it just has to be on the knees,” meaning that we need to have piety. By piety, I mean devotion: that we’re committed to love, to charity, and to humility. And so those are the ways that I think Francis wanted people to go about. And it’s very clear when you read Francis’ writings that Francis read a lot, that Francis prayed a lot. One of the beautiful things about the Franciscan tradition is just how grounded it is in sacred scripture. And you aren’t able to ground it in something that you don’t know and something that you haven’t studied.
So it’s clear to me Francis did that work, and he just wants to make sure that we’re not trying to kind of build ourselves up, but we’re trying as best we can to kind of build up a community. So there’s always going to be a struggle and a challenge with that. But I really do believe that renewal is rooted in study, and Francis took that time away to study scripture. All of us are called to take time away from what we’re doing in order to do it better. And if we understand our Franciscan tradition, if we study our Franciscan tradition, we’ll see 800 years of trying to contextualize what we’re doing. So, there’s abuses. Francis saw those abuses. At the end of the day, he just said we need more devotion. So I think as long as we’re trying to lead with love, we’ll hopefully get closer to that reality.
FRANCISCAN MEDIA: I’m curious what you think about Francis’ approach to ideas. It seems like today we as a culture are addicted to our ideas, and we are addicted to certainty. We’re addicted to feeling like we’re the ones who are right, always pointing the finger at those who are wrong. It seems humility got lost in there somewhere in our approach to ideas. Any thoughts on that as it comes to renewal in our own culture and our society?
GARRETT GALVIN: I think a little bit of the danger is that an idea, I think, is an abstraction. And this is where the Franciscan emphasis on praxis—our emphasis on kind of the lived reality—becomes very important. I think Francis had an idea of what it was to be a leper from the top of that horse, and he had a much different idea once he actually started talking to them. And we see that Francis had an idea of, I think, what it meant to be a Muslim before he went to Egypt and met Muslims. And then he seems to have had a much different idea. And he seems to have been able to recognize important parts of their culture when he went there. So I think ideas become concrete when they’re in a person, when they’re in an experience. And so we have that kind of push to, rather than to kind of condemn abstractions, to really think about people. And even though there’s people that I would disagree with terribly, I still have to say that person is made in the image and likeness of God, and there’s a reason why they’re saying these things. There’s been some type of hurt. There’s been some type of disregard of them. And so I have to be able to try to hear them and then try to dialogue with them using the gospel. And so we see Francis doing this. I think we see Jesus doing this beautifully with a Samaritan woman, with a Syrophoenician woman. And there’s conflict there. But then there’s two people. And ultimately, at the end of those stories, there’s two people who see the blessing, the goodness, and the call to orderliness in their relationship, rather than a call to chaos.
FRANCISCAN MEDIA: Yeah, you mentioned patience, charity, and humility. It seems like we all need those three things more than ever.
GARRETT GALVIN: Absolutely.
