Kathleen Brady, ’68, is the author of “Francis and Clare: The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi,” published by Lodwin Press and for sale on Amazon.
Francis of Assisi is, of course, rightly known for his joyous love of God and nature, but his life was filled with opposition, as Brady’s new dual biography shows. Clare of Assisi, to the extent that she is known at all, is honored for fasting and suffering, but in fact she was a fighter who outwitted a pope.
Their real story has long been obscured, but today, when many feel betrayed by their beliefs, this book offers new reasons to love Francis and Clare. Francis’s greatest shame was allowing the church to betray his promises to Clare. She used her association with him to wage a decades-long fight with the papacy, upending some of its plans and blindsiding the pope who thought he had confined her in a cloister. One cannot tell the full story of Francis without the story of Clare. It was not a romance, but it was an extraordinary relationship.
Brady is also the author of “Ida Tarbell: Portrait of A Muckraker,” for which she was named a Fellow of the Society of American Historians; and “Lucille: The Life of Lucille Ball.” She appears on diverse media from Fox News to National Public Radio, the History Channel and Turner Movie Classics podcasts talking about her subjects.
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