Join this Zoom panel of three scholars as they discuss their insights on the COVID-19 pandemic in light of St. Francis’s encounter with the leper. Geoffrey Karabin will share his insights on the non-ideological nature of the Franciscan response to pandemic suffering. Maureen Day will contrast the mercy inherent in Francis’s encounter with the leper with the pandemic’s global spread and vaccine distribution. Sister Suzanne Mayer, IHM, will present the life and ministry of one of America’s newest Franciscan saints, Mother Marianne Cope and how her mission to the leper island of Molokai was transformative for the body, soul and spirit of patients and families doomed to die of that of that era’s epidemic. This panel will offer their insights as contributors to an edited collection devoted to the theme of Francis, lepers, and COVID-19.