BEGGARS have been banned within 500m of churches in Assisi, Italy.And it's now illegal to feed the pigeons in the town square.
You wonder what Francis of Assisi would have thought of that.
Eight hundred years ago this month, Francis, a former wealthy playboy, swapped his clothes with those of a street beggar, renounced all material possessions and devoted himself to seriously trying to live as Jesus did.
Francis of Assisi, barefoot or wearing an old pair of sandals, preached wherever people would gather - in marketplaces and open fields. And, like Jesus, Francis could turn a motley crowd into a congregation.
He is still one of the most cherished of Christian pioneers, with more than 1000 biographical books available on his life.
Legend has it that Francis, the Catholic patron saint of animals, preached in the open countryside, attracting attentive animals and birds as well as people. The most common statues have him with birds.
Francis was more than a medieval hippie. He was an uncommon man who deliberately defied governments and religious institutions and protested against war and religious hypocrisy without regarding the cost to himself.
He took Jesus' teachings literally, including, "Go, sell all you have, and give to the poor, and come, follow me".
He said receiving was in giving.
Francis was often hungry and cold. He sometimes had no shelter, occasionally was beaten, robbed, shipwrecked, betrayed by false friends, misunderstood by those in authority and often ridiculed.
But he was notoriously cheerful. "It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look," he said.
He believed in simplicity. Francis was hoeing his garden when someone asked what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day.
"I would finish hoeing my garden," he replied.
Francis's stance - based on a simple acceptance of the radical Christian message of unconditional love for all - still makes many people uncomfortable today.
"Don't make a saint of me," Francis, who never became a priest, begged his followers. But the Catholic Church did anyway.
He was dismissed and mocked as a madman. Some church leaders, who had built a life of luxury for themselves through the sale of indulgences, feared he might undermine their incomes.
They were right to think so.
English writer G.K. Chesterton said Francis was a great paradoxical figure, a man who loved women, but vowed himself to chastity; an artist who loved the pleasures of the natural world, but vowed to be the most austere; a clown who stood on his head in order to see the world aright.
Francis described himself as God's fool, but he was not mad. He famously said: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."
Francis is still an important Christian guide. He lived out the Sermon on the Mount better than anyone else except perhaps Jesus.
His philosophy was biblical, but radical - why not live out the Christian life as close as you possibly can?
Francis told his followers to spread the gospel, adding, "use words if necessary". He said life was mostly about serving others.
The Prayer of Peace, attributed to Francis, is cherished by Christians. It sums up his philosophy: "Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
''Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
''O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."
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