Francis of Assisi is Catholicisms most popular saint. But the real Francisboth his complicated personality and his complex theologyhave been misunderstood for centuries. Franciss early life was defined by his profligacy; shortly before dying, Francis himself warned his brothers: Dont be too quick to canonize me. I am perfectly capable of fathering a child. Two years after Franciss death, however, Pope Gregory IX rushed to make Francis a saint, and the Church soon eliminated from the public record significant aspects of his biography. In A Mended and Broken Heart, journalist and writer on religion Wendy Murray slices through this bowdlerized version of Franciss life, presenting a profoundly humane portrait of a misunderstood saint who was in every way also a real man.
