In Assisi, Pope highlights church’s goals
ASSISI, ITALY— Pope Francis broke bread with the poor and embraced the disabled on a pilgrimage to his namesake’s hometown Friday, urging the faithful to follow the example of the 13th-century St. Francis, who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and service to the poor. According to tradition, God told St. Francis to “repair my house,” and the first pope to take the saint’s name has made clear that he sees that as his own mission as well. For Francis, that means reaching out to the most marginalized among the church’s1.2 billion followers, reforming the broken Vatican bureaucracy, and allowing the faithful to shake things up in their dioceses — even at the annoyance of their bishops — if that’s what it takes to better spread God’s word.
After all, the pope said, St. Francis was a radical himself in his complete devotion to his faith — a model that can serve Catholics today.