Franciscan Procurator

Description

Will Ruddick explains:

"These were not people gesturing at simplicity. They were radically committed to a life that mirrored the humility of Christ, barefoot and uncluttered, drawn to the edges of wealth and power. For them, money wasn’t just dangerous - it was spiritually radioactive. Saint Francis called it “the dung of the devil.” And indeed, they believed it left a residue, a smell, a heaviness in the soul. Touching coins was not a neutral act. It bent the heart. It fed illusions of control. It violated trust in divine and communal providence.

And yet, people must eat. A friar (priest) might own nothing, but his sandals still wore out. So what then? If one must not touch the dung of the devil… how, still, to live?

The answer emerged as a strange and brilliant workaround - the procurator.

The word procurator comes from the Latin pro ("for") and curare ("to care for"). A procurator was someone who would handle finances on your behalf - a carer, not an owner. In the Franciscan world, procurators were lay people, not friars, who received money, turned it into useful goods, and passed it on. They stood between the friars and the world of transaction, acting like ethical membranes between sacred vow and worldly need. They didn’t enrich themselves. They translated - from gold to bread, from danger to service.

This wasn’t just a legal loophole. It was a theological innovation. A practical mysticism. The procurator was not merely a workaround for poverty. They were a vessel of moral coherence, allowing the friars to remain true to their vow while not starving in a material world."

(https://willruddick.substack.com/p/composting-the-devils-dung)