this did not deter him from undertaking a series of preaching missions, ministering to the lepers, and relentlessly encouraging his brothers to give themselves to the ideals of the Gospel. Francis died at Santa Maria degli Angeli, the Portiuncula, on October 3, 1226. Less than two years later, on July 16, 1228, he was canonized by Pope Gregory IX. In 1939 he was proclaimed the patron of Italy and in 1980 he was proclaimed patron of ecology by Pope John Paul II.3 It may come as a surprise that so