Online Encyclopedia

FRANCIS OF PAOLA (or PAULA), ST

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 940 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

FRANCIS OF PAOLA (or PAULA), ST  , founder of the Minims, a religious order in the Catholic Church, was born of humble parentage at Paola in
See also:
Calabria in 1416, or according to the
See also:
Bollandists 1438 . As a boy he entered a Franciscan friary, but
See also:
left it and went to live as a
See also:
hermit in a cave on the seashore near Paola . Soon disciples joined him, and with the bishop's approval he built a church and monastery . At first they called themselves " Hermits of St Francis "; but the
See also:
object they proposed to themselves was to go beyond even the strict Francis-cans in fasts and bodily austerities of all kinds, in poverty and in humility; and therefore, as the Franciscans were the Minors (minores, less), the new order took the name of Minims (minimi, least) . By 1474 a number of houses had been established in
See also:
southern Italy and Sicily, and the order was recognized and approved by the pope . In 1482 Louis XI. of France, being on his deathbed and hearing the reports of the holiness of Francis, sent to ask him to come and attend him, and at the pope's command he travelled to Paris . On this occasion Philip de Comines in his
See also:
Memoirs says: " I never saw any man living so holily, nor out of whose mouth the
See also:
Holy Ghost did more manifestly speak." He remained with Louis till his
See also:
death, and Louis' successor, Charles VIII., held him in such high esteem that he kept him in Paris, and enabled him to found various houses of his order in France; in Spain and Germany, too, houses were founded during Francis's lifetime . He never left France, and died in 1507 in the monastery of his order at Plessisles-
See also:
Tours . The
See also:
Rule was so strict that the popes long hesitated to confirm it in its entirety; not until 1506 was it finally sanctioned . The most
See also:
special feature is an additional vow to keep a perpetual Lent of the strictest kind, not only flesh
See also:
meat but fish and all animal products—eggs, milk, butter, cheese, dripping—being forbidden, so that the
See also:
diet was confined to
See also:
bread, vegetables, fruit and oil, and
See also:
water was the only drink . Thus in
See also:
matter of diet the Minims surpassed in austerity all orders in the West, and probably all permanently organized orders in the East . The strongly ascetical spirit of the Minims manifested itself in the title borne by the superiors of the houses—not abbot (
See also:
father), or prior, or
See also:
guardian, or minister, or rector, but corrector; and the general
See also:
superior is the corrector general .

Notwithstanding its extreme severity the order prospered . At the death of the founder it had five provinces—Italy, France, Tours, Germany, Spain . Later there were as many as 450 monasteries, and some

missions in India . There never was a Minim house in England or Ireland . It ranks as one of the Mendicant orders . In 1909 there were some twenty monasteries, mostly in Sicily, but one in Rome (S . Andrea delle Fratte), and one in Naples, in
See also:
Marseilles and in Cracow . There have been Minim nuns (only one convent has survived, till recently at Marseilles) and Minim Tertiaries, in imitation of the Franciscan Tertiaries . The habit of the Minims is black . See Helyot, Hist.
See also:
des ordres religieux (1714), vii. c . 56; Max Heimbucher, Orden and Kongregationen (1896), i . § 52; the article " Franz von Paula " in Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed .

2), and in

Herzog, Realencyklopadie (ed . 3); Catholic
See also:
Dictionary,
See also:
art . " Minims." (E . C .

End of Article: FRANCIS OF PAOLA (or PAULA), ST
[back]
FRANCIS OF MAYRONE [FRANCISCUS DE MAYR0NIs] (d. 132...
[next]
FRANCIS RUSSELL

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click and select "copy." Paste it into a website, email, or other HTML document.