De Sales, Francis, St.

De Sales, Francis, St.

Francis De Sales was a Catholic bishop of Geneva, who was pastorally active in the face of Calvinism and who cofounded the order of Visitation Nuns. He wrote the devotional classic Introduction to a Devout Life (3rd definitive edition, 1609), which emphasized that spiritual perfection is possible for people busy with the affairs of the world and not only, as many believed at the time, for those who withdraw from society. In 1923 Pope Pius XI named him patron saint of writers.

Within forty years of his death, Francis was beatified (1661), the first to receive this ceremony of beatification at St. Peter's, Rome. Two centuries later, he became the first writer in French to be named doctor of the church (1877.)