Friars of the Renewal

These guys are REAL Franciscans–they don’t drive around in brand new cars or lounge around watching HBO on a flat screen TV with surround sound like some other Franciscan Orders do. I also doubt that they kick back with expensive import beer after a big steak dinner on expensive china plates, either.Religious life in America is mostly a joke at this point–there is nothing radical or evangelical about it. I know from experience–most orders are a vast wasteland of grey-haired heterodox hippies, with a few faithful religious trying in vain to hold on to their vows in spite of the leadership. Most orders are nothing more than an induction into an upper middle class lifestyle. These guys are bucking this trend and are actually trying to live like religious. And THAT is why they have more postulants and novices than they know what to do with. The Orders that are dying are dying FOR A REASON–let them die. New Orders, like the CFRs, will rise up out of their ashes and help usher in a renewal of religious life in America.