"An activist can have an elaborate theory of poverty while never being dependent upon a neighbor. A professional can advocate “community” while their actual social world consists almost entirely of people with similar education, occupations, political commitments, and cultural tastes.

A Franciscan ideal, in the interpretation the commenter is invoking, says something like:

Go somewhere where your credentials don't confer much status. Serve people. Depend upon people. Work alongside people. Listen to people. Let them inconvenience you.

That last part is particularly important.

There is a difference between advocating for people and being socially entangled with them.

The former can preserve a hierarchy:

I understand your structural oppression, therefore I will speak on your behalf.

The latter potentially creates reciprocity:

We're neighbors, coworkers, parishioners, friends, or fellow members of an organization, and therefore your problems become partly my problems.

That is a substantially different relationship".

"The important Franciscan qualities here are not really doctrinal. They are humility, simplicity, proximity to ordinary people, service, and willingness to share in material rather than merely intellectual life".

"Manual or nonprofessional employment doesn't automatically produce greater political wisdom, community attachment, or interpersonal authenticity.

Someone can become so enamored with “ordinary people” that they start romanticizing them.

Then the hierarchy simply reverses:

elite = artificial
ordinary = authentic

That's no better intellectually.

Working-class communities have their own status hierarchies, ideological orthodoxies, prejudices, social exclusions, and forms of insularity. Practical experience doesn't immunize people against bad reasoning."