He renounced his fortune and lived amongst animals so does the example of St Francis help us think about issues like the wealth gap and our relationship with the environment and the natural world. October 4th is his feast day and this year the Catholic church is marking the 800th anniversary of his death.
For Radio 4's Friday night roundtable discussion programme about ideas past and present Anne McElvoy is joined by:
Peter Stanford is an author of articles and books on religion including about pilgrimage, angels, 50 religious ideas you really need to know and most recently Gaudí: God’s Architect.
New Generation Thinker Dr Jakub Kowalewski, a Senior Research Fellow at St Mary's University Twickenham, author of A Philosophy of Climate Apocalypticism. He is working on the Guardians of Creation Project investigating paths to sustainable and ecologically sensitive change in the Catholic Church.
Carmody Grey, is professor of Integral Ecology at the Laudato Si’ Institute at Radboud University. She also appears as a panelist on some episodes of Radio 4's Moral Maze.
Rupert Read is Emeritus Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project.
Daniel Susskind is Professor of Business at Gresham College, a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University and the author of What Should My Children Do? How to Flourish in the Age of AI
Producer: Ruth Watts