Talk:Prayer of Saint Francis

Rename?
Any thoughts on whether this article should be renamed, and if so, what it should be changed to? Much as I am a fan of both the prayer and of St. Francis of Assisi, it is pretty well established that he didn't write it, and it seems Wikipedia is propagating an inaccuracy by having the prayer in an article titled under his name. As for what to rename it to, maybe the lack of an obvious answer is the reason it hasn't already been changed. I've seen it titled The Peace Prayer, but other suggestions are welcome. --Mwalimu59 16:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That is a very good idea, since it is confirmed by studies that the prayer was just printed on the backside of a picture of St. Francis around 1912 1920 in the wake of World War I. But there could be a redirection from the old title, since many people still search for the text under this name, and there should be a definite correction within the text that states that St. Francis is not the author. Sr. F (--217.86.117.199, 21:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC))


 * I think that the current title is fine. Accurately or inaccurately, the prayer is commonly referred to, and known, as the Prayer of Saint Francis.  Within the article, mention should be made of whether or not Saint Francis did indeed author the prayer.  Assuming that Saint Francis did not author this prayer, and that its title is a misnomer, "Prayer of Saint Francis" is nonetheless the commonly known, accepted, and used title.  (Joseph A. Spadaro 02:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC))


 * the above comments are intereting though the lives of those i have been lucky, yes luck as you wish to define it, such people living by this prayer and the teaching of st francis, whether historical or myth of such a life are continance of whatever christianity pretends to search for in all variations.Such people try to prove by their compasion and understanding of the isolation of individulas within the corperate world of profit. There is room in the universe for science and compasion —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.216.215 (talk) 01:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Belated thanks for the comments. The renaming question came up again in 2014 (see below), and ended with a solid consensus that "Prayer of Saint Francis" is the most WP:RECOGNIZABLE title despite its inaccuracy. —Patrug (talk) 11:48, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Move request

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Andrewa (talk) 18:26, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

It's clear that it's not actually a prayer of St. Francis, but it's almost invariably known by that title in English, so I think it should be moved back there. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:07, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the disambig page that's there now can be removed. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:18, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I've often heard it referred to as the Peace Prayer; unfortunately there are a few other prayers around (not all of which are Christian) that could be referred to as the "Peace Prayer" or "Prayer of Peace", so that title may be too ambiguous. I dislike the current title (it strikes me as atypical to refer to a prayer (or song or poem) by it's first line, especially in a medium that tries to be at least somewhat formal like Wikipedia) and while I agree with the concern that the prayer didn't originate with St. Francis of Assisi, changing it back to 'Prayer of St. Francis' may be the least unfavorable of the alternatives.
 * As for whether or not the prayer is Roman Catholic in origin, it seems to me that should be based on whether the earliest known sources can be considered Roman Catholic. As I understand it, the two that may be most relevant are the French spiritual magazine La Clochette (the earliest known full modern rendition) and the breviary of William the Conqueror (which has a partial version and predates even Francis himself). mwalimu59 (talk) 15:44, 22 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, move it back to Prayer of Saint Francis. Moving it to the current "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace" title was silly, perhaps driven by ignorance of WP:RECOGNIZABLE. In a case where there is a name that is overwhelmingly more recognizable than any other, such as here, the place to handle the incongruence between the common name and the history is in the article text, not in the title. Misnomers can be tolerated in titles -- for example, Wikipedia has an article on "Blackboard", not on "Greenboard", because Blackboard is the common name, despite at the present time very often being a misnomer. --Presearch (talk) 18:31, 22 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Reliable published reference for musical setting by Ryan Cayabyab?
Ryan Cayabyab's English/Italian mash-up "Prayer of St. Francis / Il Signore" has dozens of "bootleg" versions online. However, it seems no official recording or publication has been found in the years since the unregistered editor 99.37.121.8 added Cayabyab to the article. So for now, I moved the name here instead. If someone eventually finds a reliable published reference for his composition, we can put back into the article's alphabetical list with a suitable citation. —Patrug (talk) 09:13, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Ryan Cayabyab

Copyright expired for 1927 English version of prayer
Is there a good Wikipedia-approved way of editing the section on possible English-version copyright? I'm the senior editor of Friends Journal, the successor publication to Friends Intelligencer and we've long ceded copyright for anything published before 1955. I'm happy to edit the piece but I don't have an outside link to point to. I could publish a page on our website saying we don't have copyright. Does anyone know if that would be sufficient? Martin kelley (talk) 16:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for this information. Now that it's here on the Talk page, I've trimmed the parenthetical note that's no longer needed in the article text. It would indeed be useful for FriendsJournal.org to post a statement saying that the copyrights of its pre-1955 predecessors were not renewed — or whatever you determine the precise status to be. Our Wikipedia article currently links to a partial scan of the 1927 prayer on Google Books, and also links to a full reprint on QuoteInvestigator.com, so it's reassuring to know that neither is infringing a current copyright. Thanks again. —Patrug (talk) 08:09, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Any chance that the journal's records give any clues to the source for the prayer in 1927? —Patrug (talk) 08:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Oh dear, what a bad Wikipedia responder I am! I've added a note on the Friends Journal permissions page explicitly relinquishing any copyright claims to our predecessor magazines. https://www.friendsjournal.org/permission-to-reprint/ . I don't have any information on how the prayer got there. To me this looks like someone needed to fill a last-minute empty space in the layout. American Friends were very involved in relief work following the First World War and could have easily come across Father Benoît's holy card. Martin kelley (talk) 16:12, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Ready for "Good Article" nomination?
Special thanks for your many contributions to this high-traffic article over the years, helping to inform hundreds of readers every day, and over a million in total. I've done some further work to improve the text & references & multimedia. Once the article is stable for a few weeks with no major objections, I think it'll be strong enough to nominate for official Good Article status (top 1% quality rating, if the eventual reviewer agrees).


 * Prof75 (and also Prof.C.R. if you're not the same person): Thank you for sharing the important research findings in the 2001 book. If possible, I'd like to expand this Wikipedia article with even more information from the book. For those of us who cannot read French or Italian without computer translation, do you know of any complete electronic copy that I might be able to use temporarily to read a crude translation by computer?
 * Mwalimu59 : Thank you for watching over the article for a decade and patiently cleaning up after unconstructive edits. For a page that gets hundreds of viewers per day, it's a great help that you've been able to patrol & repair problems within hours. With your long-term perspective on the article, I think you should be pleased with the current version?
 * Bfpage & Qowieury : Thank you both for improving the level of sourcing for the article. I've continued the effort, and in particular I've tried to include video references only when consistent with the guidance in WP:VIDEOLINK, namely official videos from WP:RELIABLE SOURCES without WP:COPYLINK violations. See if you're OK with the current set of citations?
 * SarekOfVulcan : Thanks for your diligent efforts to steer the article around copyright infringement and other policy issues. It would be great to break the endless cycle of well-intentioned editors adding/changing/deleting different texts of the Peace Prayer. My current version presents the complete original text (1912, in French, footnoted, copyright expired), alongside a literal line-by-line English translation that my computer & I prepared for the article, reasonably consistent with previous English translations but not violating the copyright of any. I hope this approach finally stabilizes the article and satisfies your concerns?

Further suggestions are welcome from everyone. Thanks again. —Patrug (talk) 07:48, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Works for me. My only remaining concern is to standardize what it's called throughout. While I've argued for the "Prayer of Saint Francis" title before on the grounds that it's probably the most well-known title, I know it's not the most accurate title we could pick. Whatever title we end with, that's how we should refer to it in the article. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Good point, thanks. I used the alternate title "Peace Prayer" a few times, because "the prayer" was getting a bit monotonous and "Prayer of St. Francis" was inappropriate for the years before the prayer & saint became associated. But I see your point about being consistent, so I just zapped all mentions of "Peace Prayer" except for the lead sentence and external references. I also added the article to the disambiguation page "Prayer for Peace" and created a re-direct from "Peace Prayer". Hope this helps to keep things straight. —Patrug (talk) 01:10, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

After a stable month with zero revisions from ~20,000 readers, I just posted the "Good Article" nomination. Hope for the best! —Patrug (talk) 04:02, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Olive Dungan Setting
So, I've been in a wiki-edit war with the Powers That Be regarding my biography of American Composer Olive Dunegan, who was quite prolific in the 1950's and a voice for female composers. I guess the Wiki-editors are sexist because they won't include her name as sufficiently important, despite the fact she sold over a million copies of the sheet music to a setting of this text in the 1950's and it is still performed in concerts and in churches nationwide. The Wikipedia editor gestapo is really doing a disservice to people who do things like write program notes for concerts when her setting is composed. I tried to put her name down as a person who set this text and BAM, I ended up in Wikipedia jail. This has got to stop. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.126.71.24 (talk) 01:15, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 10:55, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Mistakes in the English translation of the Prayer
I am not a master of the French language, but it is easy to see that there are mistakes in the English translations of these two sections:

"O Lord, grant that I make seek rather to be consoled as to console,"

"it is in dying that one is awakens to eternal life."

I would also like to see a popular current version of the Prayer, such as found here:

https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/saints-prayers/peace-prayer-of-saint-francis

There are quite a few different versions of this prayer, and it would be interesting to have a separate section comparing different versions, what lines are included and which are left out.