Saint Francis de Sales

Francis de Sales is the patron saint of journalists, and the reason is a beautiful one. But let’s take it one step at a time. He was born in Savoy in 1567, the eldest son of the lord of Boisy, and received the education expected of him: schools in La Roche and Annecy, then Paris with the Jesuits, then Padua, where in 1592 he earned his law degree with high honors. His father already had his career laid out for him — he came home appointed a lawyer of the Senate of Chambéry. Except that in Padua something else had happened to him: he had discovered that he wanted to be a priest. It was a disappointment for his father. He was ordained on December 18, 1593, and celebrated his first Mass three days later. They sent him to the Chablais, a region that had gone over to Calvinism wholesale. There Francis tried preaching, and from the pulpit he got nowhere. So he did something no one was doing: he started to **write**. He printed leaflets, slipped them under the doors of houses, posted them on walls. If people didn’t come to him, he went to the people, one sheet at a time. That’s why today he is patron of journalists and of anyone who spreads the faith through the media. His method was dialogue, not confrontation: he even asked to be sent to Geneva, the heart of Calvinism, to discuss theology with the Protestants face to face. He died in Lyon in 1622; he was proclaimed a saint in 1665 and is a Doctor of the Church. If your name is Francis or Frances, today is one of your two possible days — the other is October 4, the one from Assisi. A man who understood that if no one listens to you, the fault doesn’t necessarily lie with those who keep quiet.