THE REBEL SAINTS Clare of Assisi & Agnes of Bohemia

Saint Clare of Assisi (left) and Saint Agnes of Bohemia (right)

When 18-year-old Clare fled her family to become the world’s first Franciscan nun, she committed to a lifetime of poverty, austerity, and caring for the poor. So when a powerful man tried to rewrite all the rules, Clare was faced with an impossible choice – defy the Pope or deny her own conscience. Then Princess-turned-Abbess Agnes of Bohemia heard of Clare’s struggle, and she too joined the fray – two nuns against the patriarchy in the fight of their lives.

Our guest is Kathleen Brady, author of Francis and Clare: The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi.

Saint Clare of Assisi from a fresco by Simone Martini in the Lower basilica of San Francesco Assisi, c1320

St Clare and her sisters
Church of San Damiano
photo by Gunnar Bach Pedersen

Convent of San Damiano
photo by Hagai Agmon-Snir

Agnes Tending the Sick by the Bohemian Master, 1482
National Gallery, Prague

Saint Agnes of Bohemia Gives the Grandmaster a Model of the Church
Altarpiece of Niklaus Puchner

Agnes of Bohemia by Gustav Makarius Tauc
St. Vitus Cathedral

Convent of Saint Agnes in Prague
photo by Jerzy Strzelecki

Kathleen Brady was named a Fellow of the Society of American Historians for her biography Ida Tarbell: Portrait of a Muckraker. Her critically well-received Lucille, The Life of Lucille Ball is currently in its fifth printing, and her latest book, Francis and Clare The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi, won a 2022 award in biography from the Catholic Media Association. Brady has been featured on many programs about her subjects, including on NPR, the History Channel, Turner Classic Movies, Fox Nation, and PBS. Brady is a past co-director of the Biography Seminar at New York University and a former reporter for Time Magazine, and the ABC movie “A Passion for Justice” starring Jane Seymour was based oh her research into the life of Mississippi journalist and civil rights activist Hazel Brannon Smith. Her recent articles appear in America, Commonweal, The National Catholic Reporter, and Smithsonian digital. She is a Mentor Editor at The OpEd Project and was a guest tutor on essay writing at The School of The New York Times. She makes her home in New York City.

Music featured in this episode includes

Ai Vist Lo Lop, Ja Nuns Hons Pris, Laudar Volio Per Amore, Maria Unser Frowe, and Seigneurs Sachiez performed by Farya Faraji & World Musicians

Svatý Václave performed by Schola Gregoriana Pragensis & Anonymous III

Czaldy Waldy by Elthin

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