Assisi: a universal appeal

(Vatican Radio) In the run-up to Pope Francis’s historic visit to the city of Assisi, Vatican Radio spoke to its bishop, to its mayor, to many of the Franciscan friars who live there, to other members of the Franciscan family watching from afar. We also spoke to Assisi-born Paolo Mirti, a journalist and the author of books, amongst which “La Società delle Mandorle” which tells of how the people of Assisi, its bishop and its religious risked their lives to save hundreds of Jews from persecution during the 2^nd World War.

Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni asked him why Assisi is such a special place….

Assisi is a special place because of its universal appeal. In Assisi, men and women of all cultures and religions that have their roots in the love for humanity feel at home.

Assisi – Mirti says - has the energy of welcome, and it fosters dialogue between peoples of different religions and cultural identities. This – he points out - is thanks to the extraordinary figure of St. Francis who lived and preached pushing himself beyond the boundaries of his own identity. Mirti says this is clear if you think of when he explained to Cardinal Ugolino the reasons for his mission of peace to the East during the crusades. In that occasion he said something important: “he said God had sent the friars to spiritually save all men, not men of any particular belonging. Assisi’s greatness is in its universality… and Mirti says Pope Bergoglio reflects this universality.

And speaking of the Pope’s visit to Assisi, Mirti says that personally, he was particularly impressed with the Pope’s choice to visit places like the Portiuncula, the “Eremo delle Carceri”, the “Tugurio” – or hut – in the Sanctuary of Rivotorto. These are all places - he says – where the young Francis first revealed his vocation to live a life dedicated to the poorest of the poor. Mirti says that his interpretation of this choice of Pope Francis lies within his wish to draw attention to the values of that first phase in Francis’s life: “his capacity to undertake what he calls an “undefined path”. He explains that without a proper “residence” he was able to set forth on his universal journey to bring his message of peace. And Mirti recalls that one of the revolutionary novelties Francis brought to the Church with the foundation of the Order of the Friars Minor, was the lack of a Conventual discipline and the fact that the friars had to take to the streets two by two " and to quote from Jacques Da Vitry "in the vastness of an open cloister”.

In this choice – he adds - there is also the wish to reaffirm the purity and the force of a spiritual message that is founded exclusively on the teachings of the Gospel.

Mirti says Francis was radical in the way he always turned to the Gospel and lived the Gospel. “Even when in 1209 he informed Pope Innocent III of his propositions, he simply asked to be allowed to live according to the Holy Gospel, to follow the Gospel closely so that all else appeared a simple diversion… this is part of his greatness.