St. Francis de Sales was a Bishop, founder, and Doctor of the Church, also the patron of the Catholic press. Francis was born in Avoy, in the Chateau de Sales. He studied at Annecy, in Parish (1581-1588), and the University of Padua (1588-1592), and received his doctorate in law at the age of 24. He chose to abandon a potentially brilliant secular career to enter the religious life, studying for the priesthood, despite the opposition of his family. Ordained in 1593, he became the provost of Geneva, Switzerland, and went to Chablais. There he undertook his first major mission: he went to the Chablais to preach among the Calvinists. His evangelizing labors lasted for four years and, in the face of great physical danger and challenges, he was largely successful in converting most of the inhabitants.

In 1599, Francis was chosen as coadjutor bishop to Geneva. He succeeded in 1602, and became a leading figure in the Counter-Reformation and was famed for his wisdom and learning. An outstanding confessor, Francis directed Blessed Marie Acarie and St. Jane Frances de Chantal. He also founded schools and stabilized the Church in his region. With St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Francis founded the Order of the Visitation in 1610. He died at the Visitandine convent of Bellecour, Lyons, on December 28.

Francis was the author of numerous and extremely popular devotional writings. Chief among these were the Introduction to the Devout Life and Treatise on the Love of God. The Introduction began as a small manual for the use by Madame de Charmoisy, his cousin’s wife, and was intended to encourage the life of prayer and devotion. It was much respected by a wide cross section of European culture, including King James I of England. One of his most important maxims declared: “It is a mistake, a heresy, to want to exclude devoutness of life from among soldiers, from shops and offices, from royal courts, from the homes of the married.”

He was called the “Gentle Christ of Geneva” while he lived and was revered in death. His beatification, held in St. Peter’s the year that he died, was the first formal beatification to be held in that basilica. He was canonized in 1653 and was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1877. His feast day is January 24.