Bonaventure, Friar & Bishop
15 July -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Teachers, page 473
Born at Bagnoreggio in Italy in about the year 1218,
Bonaventure became a Franciscan Friar in 1243 and his
intellectual ability was soon recognised by his Order and by
the Church. At the age of thirty-six he was elected
Minister General of the Franciscans and virtually re-founded
the Order, giving it a stability in training and
administration previously unknown. He upheld all the
teachings of St Francis except
in the founder's attitude to study, since Francis felt the
Order should possess no books. He clearly saw, with
Francis, that the rôle of the Friars was to support
the Church through its contemporary structures rather than
to be an instrument for reform. He also believed that the
best conversions came from the good example of those anxious
to renew the Church, rather than by haranguing or passing
laws. He was appointed a cardinal-bishop against his will,
and kept the papal messengers waiting while he finished the
washing up. He brought about a temporary reunion of the
churches in the east and the west but, before it was
repudiated, he died on this day at Lyons in the year 1274.