Article: Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days

St. Francis of Assisi, after whom Pope Francis has taken his name, captures the spirit of many Catholics because church history regards him as the pre-eminent figure passionate about imitating Christ's life.

He is known also as a patron saint of Italy, the founder of the Franciscan order of the Friars Minor, an admirer of nature and a servant to poor and destitute. The brown robe of the Franciscans is iconic.

"Francis of Assisi is a great, great figure in the church but known especially for connecting with fellow Christians and many people outside the Christian family," Rosica said.

In an encyclical, Pope Pius XI stated that "there has never been anyone in whom the image of Jesus Christ and the evangelical manner of life shone forth more lifelike and strikingly than in St. Francis." St. Francis "was also rightly spoken of as 'another Jesus Christ,'" Pius XI said.

And in one renowned episode, he went to the tattered small church of St. Damian, where Christ on the cross came to life and told him: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church in ruins," recounted Pope Benedict XVI in a 2010 address, according to the Vatican website.

Francis lived as a hermit. He went to Rome in 1209 to propose to Pope Innocent III a plan for a new form of Christian life, Benedict said. The Franciscan order was born.