Talk:Third Order of Saint Francis

Regarding the suggestion that the entry on "Third Order" be merged with this one, my own view is that this would not be appropriate, as there are many Third Orders besides the Franciscan one, which would contradict the meaning of the article. Also the resulting page would be too clunky. Daniel the Monk (talk) 20:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Much of the text on the "Third Order" page is duplicated on the page devoted to the Franciscan Third Order. It doesn't need to be in the more general article. But it makes no sense to direct people interested in the Dominican Third Order - let alone Lutheran Third Orders - to the Franciscan Third Order article. The detail of the Franciscan article is good for an article about a specific movement - if anything, I want more (what the heck is the *name* of the organised part of it? Official name, I mean) - but inappropriate for an overview article, which "Third Order" otherwise is.

The two articles serve two different purposes. Shrink the general one by getting rid of the overlap; don't trash it, and don't bury the rest of the overview under the flood of data about the Franciscans.

Joe Bernstein joe@sfbooks.com not a registered Wikipedian 97.113.103.200 (talk) 07:11, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Also oppose the merge. Why not merge "Jesuit" and "Carmelite" with "Franciscan", while we're at it, too?  All orders are just the same, by that logic. --194.98.58.121 (talk) 16:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Johnny come lately here: oppose. Oranges are not the only fruit. Drmies (talk) 17:19, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I am thinking of requesting (requiring?)
footnotes for folks who are put in the notable persons section. it currently looks like this:
 * Among other notable figures were: St. Ferdinand, King of Castile; St. Elizabeth of Portugal, grand-niece of the first St. Elizabeth; St. Rosa of Viterbo; St. Margaret of Cortona; St. Thomas More; Blessed Umiliana Cerchi; Blessed Angela of Foligno; St. Ivo of Kermartin; Saint John Vianney, the famed Curé of Ars, France and St. Joan of Arc. Of names celebrated in history for literature, arts, politics, inventions, etc., Blessed Raymond Lull; Dante, Giotto, Petrarch, Michelangelo,Raphael, Cola di Rienzo, Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Garcia Moreno, Franz Liszt, and Lady Georgiana Fullerton. Popes Pius IX and Leo XIII were members of the Third Order, as also were Pope St. Pius X and the Blessed Pope John XXIII.

If his is a lay order, why would, for example, the Blessed Pope John XXIII be a member? There is nothing in our Joan of Arc article to support her listing and i find my self very suspicious of many of the others here too. What do you think? Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 13:59, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As for requiring footnotes, that wouldn't be a problem. Probably need some time to get all the corresponding references. As to why Popes are members, that is actually a pretty complicated answer. First off there are two major "divisions" to the Franciscan Third Order.  Third Order Regular and Third Order Secular (now known as the Secular Franciscan Order.) In the Catholic church you are either secular or religious.  The difference being whether you have taken vows to become a member of a religious community.  In a separate category you are either ordained or lay.  Most diocesan priests/bishops/popes are Ordained and Secular.  Diocesan priests that aren't members of religious Orders are allowed to be a member of the Secular Franciscan Order.  Thus many famous people, including Popes have been members of the Secular Franciscan Order.  There have also been 1st Order Popes. Several of the earlier people could easily be referenced to this article http://www.christusrex.org/www1/ofm/fra/FRAht11.html The Catholic Encyclopedia also lists several: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14637b.htm Marauder40 (talk) 14:54, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Could easily change it to:
 * Among other notable figures were: St. Ferdinand, King of Castile ; St. Elizabeth of Portugal, grand-niece of the first St. Elizabeth; St. Rosa of Viterbo; St. Margaret of Cortona; St. Thomas More; Blessed Umiliana Cerchi; Blessed Angela of Foligno; St. Ivo of Kermartin; Saint John Vianney, the famed Curé of Ars, France and St. Joan of Arc. Of names celebrated in history for literature, arts, politics, inventions, etc., Blessed Raymond Lull; Dante, Giotto, Petrarch, Michelangelo, Raphael, Cola di Rienzo, Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Garcia Moreno, Franz Liszt, and Lady Georgiana Fullerton. Popes Pius IX and Leo XIII were members of the Third Order, as also were Pope St. Pius X and the Blessed Pope John XXIII. Marauder40 (talk) 15:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Just found a link for Blessed Pope John XXIII, http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20000903_john-xxiii_en.html Marauder40 (talk) 16:26, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As noted by Marauder, the main point with Carptrash's question is that it is not a lay Order, but, rather, a secular Order in its origins. Thus secular clergy have always been able to be a part of the Order. In fact, the current national leader for the United States is a deacon.
 * Carptrash has hit upon a problem with identifying people's affiliations, though. Some figures, like Joan of Arc, might not be able to be documented as members of the Order, because these were decentralized, mostly lay, groups, which, during the Middle Ages, kept no real records of membership. Even the patron saint of the Order (King St. Louis IX) is claimed by the Trinitarian Order to have belonged to them instead.
 * What we mostly have here is the tradition of the Order as to its membership. Thus, as noted, St. Louis is considered a Franciscan, and his feast is kept within the Calendar of Saints of the Order. The same holds true for Joan of Arc, etc. Members who have not achieved recognition as heroic in the spiritual realm will be more problematic, but traditions as to their membership exist, and documentation might be available in some manuscript in Umbria or elsewhere.
 * I'm confused by individually footnoting the dozens of figures listed all to the same reference. Isn't that an unnecessary overkill? Daniel the Monk (talk) 17:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As for the overkill, that was why I didn't immediately make the change to the article itself. I think it looked very clunky.  If the text is left as is and we want every person to be referenced, that is what it will need to look like.  We could separate things into something like an entire section of people that have been referenced by the Catholic Encyclopedia, then list the people that have references elsewhere.  Something like: "Some notable figures include (as referenced in the Catholic Encyclopedia), ....  Other figures include, ...."  As for whether certain people are in the Order or not, we just need a reliable source that says they are.  If there is a lot of doubt we can put that in.  Most, like St. Louis, there is only a small degree of doubt.  St. Joan of Arc the degree is a lot higher. Marauder40 (talk) 17:58, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I must say that after hearing you guys discuss this I am not as concerned about documentation. I am NOT an "everything needs a footnote" sort of editor. Carptrash (talk) 00:25, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Merge to Secular Franciscan Order?
Should this article which seems to have some problems, be merged there? PPEMES (talk) 09:54, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * No. -as noted by above: "First off there are two major "divisions" to the Franciscan Third Order. Third Order Regular and Third Order Secular (now known as the Secular Franciscan Order." -They are different entities.  Only the early section on seculars needs to be moved, as most of the article appears to be about regulars. It would still need some historical background to explain the difference. Manannan67 (talk) 23:54, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * So why is it all mixed, seemingly? PPEMES (talk) 21:00, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for you improvements. However, would you mind improving the lead sections as well? PPEMES (talk) 13:53, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Split?
There has been some discussion (Articles for deletion/Third Order of Saint Francis) that this page is largely a somewhat unwieldy list. While that is to some extent no doubt true, that is primarily because it lacks context. Most of the American women's congregations were initiated in the mid-eighteenth century by local bishops dealing with an influx of immigrants. They either started a home-grown group or traveled to Europe to recruit sisters, sometimes both, especially if they were dealing with a particular ethnic group. (See John Neumann's request for Franciscan sisters from Bavaria to come to Philadelphia.) In many cases, the first task assigned to the sisters was the running of an orphanage to care for children whose parents had succumbed to ship fever. Their efforts then expanded to schools and hospitals. I suggest splitting out the American women's congregations to something akin to Dominican Order in the United States, perhaps "Franciscan Sisters in the United States". This might allow for more information regarding
 * the services provided (well before there were any formal social services networks), and how various congregations are related and in fact share the same roots. Oftentimes a motherhouse would spin off daughter communities at the request of bishops from other dioceses, which later became independent congregations in their own right.
 * how their work changed as local municipal and state entities began to take on responsibility for the care of orphans, educating children, and healthcare;
 * the later decline in membership and resources leading to consolidation of some communities with others. Manannan67 (talk) 06:18, 20 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Manannan67, I've made a draft doing almost exactly that, but extending it to the whole "Congregations of nuns" section and the "Congregations of friars" section--called "Congregations of the Third Order of Saint Francis". Splitting out those sections would allow better focus on this page for the composition of the Order overall. Let me know if the overall focus for the draft is too general, or if creating both an overall article for congregations and one focusing on the US and the Order's history works. Epikourios Alitheia   talk  18:58, 20 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @User:Epikourios Alitheia, I've finished removing the American congregations which tended to overwhelm this page, (and attempted to verify which still exist) but left the international ones, since unlike the Secular Franciscan who have national fraternities and a general organization, the Third Order Regulars are all separate, individual entities which happen to have adopted the same rule, consequently no general TOR article. Manannan67 (talk) 01:43, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Why was so much deleted from this article?
I was trying to find our content about the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia while making edit Special:PermaLink/1135480560 and have to say I find your removals in the last six months bewildering. Why have you deleted so much sourced content from this article without restoring it elsewhere? As far as I can tell, the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia / the Neumann Communities no longer have even a single sentence dedicated just to their organization anywhere on the encyclopedia, and you've removed the entire United States section from this article. …Why? cc: Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 22:53, 24 January 2023 (UTC)


 * As far as I can tell, the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia / the Neumann Communities no longer have even a single sentence dedicated just to their organization anywhere on the encyclopedia was off, sorry; the redirects were too generic/going to the wrong places thus causing my inability to find these missing sisters; I fixed (→) and a few others. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 23:01, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Please note, Sisters of Philadelpia/Neumann Congregation does not appear in the general list of Franciscans in the US because a separate article was created for them by another user. It was supposed that there would be a brief mention with a link once it was passed. See Draft:Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia. If you want to fix something, feel free to work on that. Manannan67 (talk) 00:57, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * (A) See the section above re a discussion last May to delete this article altogether. It was decided to "keep" and split off the US congregations to make it more managable.
 * (B) Surely with the background of five separate congregations, the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities should be its own article rather than a redirect. Manannan67 (talk) 04:27, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I did some work on the draft and see you've done some as well! Sorry my initial message was so confused, I really couldn't find what I was looking for at all. It seems even raccoons experience the dreaded PEBKAC / ID10T error at times! Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 05:31, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Unless you've any objections, I'm going to start the page for the Neumann community. Feel free to chime in. Manannan67 (talk) 05:52, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * No objection! Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 10:58, 25 January 2023 (UTC)