Brothers and Sisters of Penance of St. Francis thumb|right|Oswald Staniforth, a 19th-century friar The Brothers and Sisters of Penance of St. Francis, is a private confraternity of the Catholic Church whose members strive to model their lives according to the Rule and Statutes of the Primitive Rule of the Third Order of St. Francis, which was written for lay people in 1221 by Francis of Assisi. Right now there are several hundred members within the United States and a few hundred more throughout the world. The order was originally started in 1996 by members of the Archdiocese of St. Paul in Minnesota.
Brothers and Sisters of Penance of St. Francis thumb|right|Oswald Staniforth, a 19th-century friar The Brothers and Sisters of Penance of St. Francis, is a private confraternity of the Catholic Church whose members strive to model their lives according to the Rule and Statutes of the Primitive Rule of the Third Order of St. Francis, which was written for lay people in 1221: by Francis of Assisi. Right now there are several hundred members within the United States and a few hundred more throughout the world. The order was originally started in 1996 by members of the Archdiocese of St. Paul ,in Minnesota.