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 FRANCIS

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FRANCIS

Francis founded several new monasteries in Calabria and Sicily. He also established convents of nuns, and a thiril order for people living in the world, after the example of St. Francis of Assisi.

He had an extraordinary gift of prophecy: thus he foretold the capture of Otranto by the Turks in 1480, and its subsequent recovery by the King of Naples. Also he was gifted with discernment of consciences. He was no respecter of persons of whatever rank or position. He rebuked the King of Naples for his ill- doing and in consequence suffered much persecution. When Louis XI was in his last illness he sent an em- bassy to Calabria to beg the saint to visit him. Francis refused to come nor could he be prevailed upon until the pope ordered him to go. He then went to the king at Plessis-les-Tours, and was with him at his death. Charles VIII, Louis's successor, much ad- mired the saint and during his reign kept him near the court and frequently consulted him. This king built a monastery for Minims at Plessis and another at Rome on the Pincian Hill. The regard in which Charles VHI held the saint was shared by Louis XII, who succeeded to the throne in 1498. Francis was now anxious to return to Italy, but the king would not permit him, not wishing to lose his counsels and direc- tion. The last three months of his life he spent in entire solitude, preparing for death. On Maundy Thursday he gathered his community around him and exhorted them especially to have mutual charity amongst themselves and to maintain the rigour of their life and in particular perpetual abstinence. The next day. Good Friday, he again called them together and gave them his last instructions and appointed a vicar-general. He then received the last sacraments and asked to have the Passion according to St. John read out to him, and whilst this was being read, his soul passed away. Leo X canonized him in 1519. In 1562 the Huguenots broke open his tomb and found his body incorrupt. They dragged it forth and burnt it, but some of the bones were preserved by the Catho- lics and enshrined in various churches of his order. The Order of Minims does not seem at any time to have been very extensive, but they had houses in many countries. The definitive rule was approved in 1506 by Julius II, who also approved a rule for the nuns of tlie order. The feast of St. Francis of Paula is kept by the universal Church on 2 April, the day on which he died.

ActaSS., 2 April; Lives bv Rolland (Paris, 1874), Ferrantk (Monza, 1881), Pradier (Paris, 1903). See Butler, Lives of the Saints, 2 April; Giry, Vies des siiinles (Paris, 1SS.5), s. v.

Father Cuthbert.

Francis of Vittoria, Spanish theologian; b. about 1480, at Vittoria, province of Avila, in Old Castile; d. 12 August, 1546. While still young, he moved with his parents from their native city to Burgos, at that time the ordinary sojourn of the sovereigns of Castile. He received his early education in the schools of that place, and, on the completion of his academic studies, entered the Order of St. Dominic. While he devoted his energies to the study of the sacred sciences, the mastery of which made him an ornament to the Church, to "his order, and to the universities of Spain, he was assiduous in the practice of piety. After his religious profession he was sent to the convent of St. James in Paris, then the chief house of studies of the order and affiliated with the University of Paris, where he made the best use of the advantages held out to him for the prosecution of his philosophical and theological studies. In 1516, he was appointed to teach in this convent, and it was here, in all proba- bility, that he had for his pupil Dominic de Soto. In 1522, he returned to Spain and taught theology in the Dominican College of St. Gregory at Valladolid till 1524, when he was appointed to the principal chair of theology in the University of Salamanca which he

held till 1544. The influence which Francis exerted directly in the LTniversity of Salamanca and indirectly in the universities of Alcahi, Coinibra, Evora, Seville, Valladolid, and others, forms an interesting chapter in the history of theology. More than any other theo- logian of his time, he ministered to the actual intel- lectual needs of the Church. Scholasticism had lost its former prestige, and was passing through the most critical period in its history. The times had changed, and it required a master to adapt speculative thought to the new conditions. The revi^■al of theological ac- tivity in the Catholic universities of this period, con- sequent upon the doctrines of the reformers, and the development of theological speculation inspired Fran- cis to inaugurate a movement for the restoration of scholastic philosophy, antl to give to theological science a purer diction and an improved literary form. With foresight and ability he devoted all his energies to the undertaking, and his success is attested by the many excellent theological works that were produced in Spain durmg the sixteenth century. Among his dis- ciples were Melchior Cano, Bartholomew Medina, Dominic de Soto, and Martin de Ledesma, by whose efforts and that of the great Carmelite teachers a new zest was given to the study of St. Thomas, and by whose aid Francis was able to extend his influence to the other universities of Spain. He is justly styled the father of the Salmantacensis School, and especially of the new Scholasticism. His style, simple and un- rhetorical, is the more noteworthy for having attained its simplicity in the golden age of Humanism. He left a large number of valuable manuscripts, but his only pulilished work is the "Relectiones XII Theo- logies in duo libros distinctie" (Antwerp, 1604). The most important of his inipublished works is his "Commentaria in universam Siunmam S. Thoniie".

Qdetif and Echari>, Script. Ord. Prml.. II, 128; TouRoN, Hist, des homines illust., IV, 55-65; Hurter, NomencL; An- tonio, mU. hisp. Nova, I, 496; Ehrle in Kalholik (1884), II, 505 sqq., 518 sqq., where a detailed description of his unpub- lished works is given.

JCSEPH SCHROEDER.

Francis Regis Clet, Blessed, a Lazarist mission- ary in China: b. 1748, martyred, IS Feb., 1820. His father was a merchant of Grenoble in France, his mother's name was Claudine Bourquy. He was the tenth of fifteen children. The family was deeply reli- gious, several members of it having consecrated them- selves to God. Francis attended the Jesuit college at Grenoble and afterwards entered the diocesan semi- nary which was in charge of the Oratorians. His ex- tant letters in French and Latin show a cultivated mind. On 6 Mar., 1769, he entered the novitiate of the Congregation of the Mission or Lazarists, at Lyons. There he made his vows in 1771 and was ordained priest in 1773. The same year he went as professor of moral theology to the diocesan seminary at Annecy. His zeal and learning produced excellent fruits. In the sixteenth year of his stay at Annecy he was sent to Paris for the election of a superior general of the con- gregation. He did not return, for the new superior general appointed him director of the internal semi- nary, at the mother house in Paris. Scarcely a year had elapsed when the sacking of St. Lazare, on the eve of the taking of the Bastille, scattered his flock. Many of the yoimg men returned to the dismantled house the next day and gathered around their director, but the fury of the revolution prevented their remaining.

It was at tliis period that his ambition to become a missionary was manifested. His superior yielded to his desires, and he was sent to China in 1791. The first post assigned him was in Kiang-Si, one of the most destitute Christian .settlements in China. He had great difficulty in acquiring the language, which he never fully nuistered. The next year he was sent to Hou-Kouang wlicrc he laboured for 27 years. Death soon deprived him of his (wo brother-priests.