St. Francis de Sales and the Counter-Reformation in France

Michael Rhatican

Senior Division

Word Count: 1880

The Roman Catholic Faith is the “…pure Faith, which is the Faith of Peter, the Faith of

our Fathers, the Faith left to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and still taught the

world over by the Roman Catholic Church.”1 Francis de Sales was the Bishop of Geneva

and is honored as a Saint and a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church. He became known

for his gentle approach to religious divisions resulting from the Protestant Reformation.

In this essay, I will try to answer the question: “How did St. Francis de Sales take a stand

in history?” My answer to this question is that St. Francis de Sales led the Counter-

Reformation because of his mass conversion of 72,000 Calvinists back to Roman

Catholicism through his writings and through his deeds. In this essay I will describe how

he took a stand. First I will describe his historical context. Next, I will describe how he

specifically took a stand. Lastly, I will describe the effects of the stand.

St. Francis de Sales was born on August 21, 1567, in what is today Thorens-

Glières, France. He was born into the Duchy of Savoy as the eldest of thirteen children.

His father had high hopes that he would become a soldier, and so at an early age, he

learned to ride and hunt. After this he went to school at Annecy to study humanities.2

This was followed by his years at the Jesuit College of Clermont, which was his own

independent choice and the first time he had broken away from the path his father wanted

him to go down. There he studied rhetoric, and in turn philosophy.3 He received the

degree of Doctor of Law after four years of study at the University of Padua.4 In 1593,

1The Catholic Controversy: St. Francis De Sales’ Defense of the Faith (Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publisher, 1989), XLVI2Eunan McDonnell, The Concept of Freedom in the Writings of St. Francis De Sales (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009), 19.3 Ibid4 Ibid, 20

although it was against his father’s will, he entered the sacred ministry. Six months later

he was ordained to the priesthood, and in 1602 he became the Bishop of Geneva.5

The Protestant Reformation was a schism initiated by Martin Luther and

continued by John Calvin as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church around the

16th century. The term ‘catholic’ means universal, and it was called universal because

all Christian people of every nation acknowledged it to be the one true religion, and they

all acknowledged the Pope to be the head of the Church in every part of the world where

the religion was practiced.6

Martin Luther and John Calvin considered themselves Protestors because they

denied the authority of the Pope and other doctrines of the Church. This includes Luther’s

criticisms on the Pope and the Magisterium, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition,

salvation and purgatory, the Eucharist, and veneration of the saints and of the Virgin

Mary. Luther claimed that Pope Leo X was corrupt for selling indulgences. He said that

Tradition is not equal in reverence with the Scriptures, and that Tradition is to be

completely disregarded. He removed the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees because of their

teaching on purgatory. He said that Christ is not truly present in the Eucharist. Luther

considered the practice of making intercessory requests to Mary and the Saints to be

idolatry. These ideas of Luther and John Calvin had spread throughout France, and the

French nobility began to adopt Calvinism. In turn, the lower and middle class also

adopted Calvinism, and so it began to take a strong foothold in France.

5 Ibid6William Cobbett, A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland: Showing How That Event Has Impoverished the Main Body of the People in Those Countries ... (New York: D. & J. Sadlier, 1849), 2.

The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic resurgence as a response to

the Protestant Reformation, initially beginning with the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and

ending at the close of the Thirty Years War (1648). The term Counter-Reformation

suggests that the Catholic movement came after the Protestant; whereas in truth the

reform began in the Catholic Church, since Luther was a Catholic reformer before he

became a Protestant, and the Counter-Reformation was in response to this Reformation.7

Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent is described as the

embodiment of the Counter-Reformation. It was initially called by Pope Paul III to define

Catholic doctrine in answer to the heresies of the Protestants including certain issues on

Scripture, the Biblical canon, Sacred Tradition, salvation, the Sacraments, and veneration

of saints.8

The Protestant Reformation was a religious movement of the 16th century that

began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church. The Counter-Reformation

was the response of the Roman Catholic Church that followed the Protestant

Reformation. St. Francis de Sales led the Counter-Reformation because he converted a

mass number of people back to Roman Catholicism. In the following section of the essay

I will describe how St. Francis de Sales led the Counter-Reformation through his stand

against Calvinism. I will first describe how he took a stand through his writings and

through his deeds, and then I will describe the effects of the stand.

St. Francis de Sales set out to Chablais (east France) on September 14, 1594, to

bring back the Calvinists to Catholicism with his cousin who returned home early

7http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04437a.htm 8http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15030c.htm

because of a critical lack of funds.9 For many months, the results of St. Francis’ mission

were terrible. He had only found a few Catholics, and Calvinists refused to hear him

speak. This young man born of the nobility was spending his nights sleeping in trees to

escape from wolves in the freezing cold. He also suffered from poor circulation, which

made the winter even harder for him. He had no financial support. His father, who deeply

disapproved of St. Francis’ mission, refused to send him any money. It was left to his

mother to send him only necessary clothing and a little bit of money.10

Despite all of these hardships, St. Francis persevered, and began to work on

another approach to evangelize the Calvinists: writing pamphlets. In these pamphlets he

could say things that he couldn't say to Calvinists in person. These pamphlets contained

the defense of the truths of the Catholic Faith, and, because he had been living there for a

few months already, he knew exactly what points to go after.

One point that St. Francis attacked was the removal of some books of Sacred

Scripture. These books include, Esther, Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes,

and Maccabees. These are the reasons given by Calvinists for cutting off these books

from Sacred Scripture. They are not found in Hebrew or Chaldaic, their original

languages. They are not received as legitimate by the Jews, nor by the whole Church.

Canon Law condemns them, and in them “‘There are many false things.’”11 As to the first

point, St. Francis says that they are simply wrong. St. Jerome says that both Judith and

Tobias were both written originally in Chaldaic and translated to Latin. Maccabees and

Ecclesiastes were originally written in Hebrew. He says that even if they are not written

9The Catholic Controversy: St. Francis De Sales’ Defense of the Faith (Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publisher, 1989). XLI10 Ibid, XLII11 Ibid, 68

in Hebrew and Chaldaic, how can they accept the New Testament, which is mostly

written in Greek. It does not make sense to only accept Sacred Scripture in Hebrew or

Chaldaic.

As to the second point, St. Francis quotes St. Augustine, who says, “It is the

Catholic Church which holds the Books of Maccabees as canonical, not the Jews.”12 St.

Francis goes on to say that we are Catholics, not Jews, and there is no place in Scripture

that says that the Christian Church does not have as much or less power to say which

books are sacred as the Jews.

As to the third point, St. Francis simply says, “Of what Church are you speaking?

Unquestionably the Catholic, which is the true Church, receives [these books].” He goes

on to say that all of these books have been accepted in Ecumenical Councils at some

point in time.

As to the fourth point, that these books are not accepted by canon law, St. Francis

says that they simply cannot get their facts straight. Sancta Romana, which is of Gelasius

I, is entirely against them, for it witnesses that Tobias and Maccabees were publicly

received in the Church.13

As to the last point, St. Francis says that they have yet to point out the falsehoods

of which they accuse these books, which they will in truth never do.

These pamphlets truly did their work. They enabled Francis to reach his audience,

who would not listen to him in person, and the people of the Chablais began to see that it

was the Catholic Church that is the true religion of Christ. It was these pamphlets that

were gathered together after his death and what became The Catholic Controversy.14 For

12 Ibid, 6913 Ibid, 7114 Ibid, XLIII

60 years, the people of the Chablais had never heard the teachings of the Catholic Faith.

They had finally learned about it again.

When the tides began to turn, St. Francis offered the first Mass in the city of

Thonon in 60 years, even though that had been his headquarters for quite some time.15

The fact that there was no public disturbance at this time was a sign of the great progress

he had made over the past two years. Having the Mass strengthened the Catholic heart

and had many Calvinists thinking.

The following year he organized a 40 Hours Adoration: 40 hours of continual

exposition of the blessed Sacrament accompanied by constant prayer. It started with a

procession of 500 people in the city of Thonon and moved 18 miles to the town of

Annemasse, where the devotion would be held. Many more people joined, and in the end

there was somewhere around 30,000 people present, including some Calvinists.16 A year

later the same event was held again, this time in Thonon itself. At this occasion, many

Protestants asked to be baptized and confirm. Another 40 Hours Adoration was held two

weeks later. This time officials of the Church and state were present to receive the

abjurations of many notable Protestants, about 2,300 in number.17

Around the same time a miracle was attributed to St. Francis de Sales. A baby,

born into a Protestant family, had died without Baptism. St. Francis went to go speak to

her about the Catholic Faith and prayed that the child would be brought back to life long

enough to receive Baptism. His prayer was granted and the whole family became

Catholic.18 St. Francis now had a new task at hand: to reopen as many parishes as

15 Ibid, XLIV16 Ibid, XLV17 Ibid18 Ibid

possible. He first had to obtain the missals, chalices, crosses, and other necessary items

which had disappeared over the years. With the help of a priest named Père Cherubin, St.

Francis put 18 Churches back into operation. At this point in his life, Francis was still

only 31.

After the conversion of the Chablais, political conflicts rose up again. Even after

these tests, the converts remained firm in their faith. This is a testimony to the fact that St.

Francis de Sales went straight to the core of the Calvinist religion, dismantling every

stronghold of the Calvinist religion. But St. Francis went beyond tearing down. He rebuilt

the faith of the Catholic ancestors of the Chablais three generations earlier. When St.

Francis de Sales arrived in the Chablais, only 27 people out of 72,000 were Catholic.

After four years, the numbers where exactly reversed. 72,000 had converted to

Catholicism, and only 27 remained Calvinist.19

19 Ibid, XLI