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ST. FRANCIS DE SALES AND THE ORIGIN OF THE CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY

The Catholic Controversy is a remarkable work, a book one would admire as the accomplishment of a middle-aged cleric who had spent years in study and who had a long history of pastoral experience behind him. But the fact is that St. Francis wrote these pages between the ages of 27 and 29, beginning about one year after his ordination to the priesthood. He wrote them during a seemingly hopeless mission to win back to the Faith the 72,000 Calvinists in the Chablais (now eastern France). These people had heard just about nothing of the True Faith since the Church had been virtually obliterated in their area 60 years earlier by violent persecution and heavy fines for worshiping in the old religion (Catholicism). The government had recently returned to Catholic hands in principle, but the Calvinists still held sway and were adamant against a return to the old Faith. Salesian tradition tells us that when St. Francis arrived, only 27 persons out of the 72,000 were still Catholic, but that after four years of his efforts, the figure was exactly reversed, there remaining only 27 Calvinists: seventy-two thousand souls had returned to the True Faith. It is one of the most remarkable conversion stories in all Catholic history.

 When St. Francis set out on this assignment on September 14, 1594, he was accompanied by his cousin, Canon Louis de Sales, though Louis returned home shortly because of a critical lack of funds. Entering into the Chablais, St. Francis would be seen as both a religious and a political enemy (although he had been invited in by the Duke), so for the time being he made the garrison of Allinges his home base, though he almost never accepted the offer of an armed escort as he traveled about the region on foot; he made light of the occasional physical attacks he had to face. This high-born young man of the nobility, with two university degrees----one in civil law and one in canon law----spent his first winter tramping around the countryside going door to door searching out Catholics and trying to make a friendly contact here and there among the Protestants. St. Francis' main financial support was supposed to come from his family, but his father, who deeply disapproved of Francis' mission to the Chablais, refused to send him any money. It was left to his mother to send him surreptitiously some items of necessary clothing and a little money. Sometimes St. Francis would spend the night in a hayloft, and on one occasion, to escape from wolves, he spent the night in a tree after tying himself onto a branch so he would not fall off in his sleep; some peasants found him the next morning and unfastened him, numb with cold. Though St. Francis had a strong constitution, he always suffered from poor circulation, which made the cold winter even more painful for him. For many months, the results of St. Francis' mission were about nil. He had found a few Catholics, but Calvinists were afraid to listen to him preach, even if they wanted to, for fear of reprisals, and the Saint was often greeted with jeers and stones. The one hopeful sign he could count was the fact that one or two Calvinist leaders had gone out of their way to be friendly to him. Some people "back home" did not approve of St. Francis' work, as they felt he might be stirring up political trouble. Yet in the midst of these struggles, during a month-long break from his arduous mission, St. Francis was to receive a special grace on the Feast of Corpus Christi. During prayer he experienced a sense of closeness to God which made him say, "Hold back, O Lord, this flow of grace. Come not so near me, for I am not strong enough to endure the greatness of Your consoling touch, which forces me to the ground." This was one of the extraordinary graces which St. Francis de Sales received during his life.

As time went on and St. Francis saw his efforts to preach to the Calvinists frustrated, he began to work on another approach: writing pamphlets. In these pamphlets the Apostle of the Chablais could say the things he could not preach to the Calvinists in person. These little tracts in defense of the truths of the Faith would be small enough to be slipped under the doors of those the Saint wished to reach. Soon he was having them printed to be passed out hand to hand and also to be posted in appropriate places.

It was these pamphlets that would be gathered together after St. Francis' death and published as Controversies, or The Catholic Controversy. They are remarkably to the point, showing a thorough grasp of the Calvinist claims, courage in standing up to them, and a keen intelligence in exposing them. Despite the fact that St. Francis de Sales had only three books with him for reference (the Bible, St. Robert Bellarmine's Controversies and St. Peter Canisius' Catechism), his learning is obvious, as he confidently quotes the Sacred Scriptures, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and speaks of the Greek and Hebrew versions of the Bible. Yet these pamphlets were by no means academic; St. Francis was right there in the thick of the religious controversy fray, and he knew exactly what points to go after.

The tracts apparently did their work, enabling the Saint to reach his intended audience, who would not listen to him, and enabling the Calvinists to see that it is the Catholic Church, after all, which is the true religion of Christ, with the mission to teach in His name.

These people who for 60 years----two or three entire generations----had not heard what the Catholic Faith teaches now learned about it again. Centuries later, in declaring St. Francis de Sales a Doctor of the Church (1877), Pope Pius IX stated that this book is "a full and complete demonstration of the Catholic religion." St. Francis begins his argument with an examination of mission from God, showing that the Catholic Church possesses this mission and the Protestant sects do not. He also delineates eight Rules of Faith----Holy Scripture, the Apostolic Traditions, the authority of the Church, the authority of Councils, the authority of the ancient Fathers of the Church, the authority of the Pope, miracles, and the harmony between faith and reason----showing how all point to the Catholic Faith as the Divinely given religion. He states: "Ultimately, however, the sole and true Rule of right-believing is the Word of God preached by the Church of God." But why, he asks, should anyone bow to the supposed authority of a Luther or a Calvin?

Our admiration of St. Francis' technique must not blind us to the fact that his weapons were first of all spiritual. He had planned to take Geneva by love----"Love will shake the walls of Geneva." "Ardent prayer must break down the walls of Geneva and brotherly love charge them . . . Everything gives way to love. Love is as strong as death, and to him who loves, nothing is hard.  . . ." In speaking of his hope to win back the Chablais for the Church, St. Francis said, "But the way to this is the propitiation of Almighty God by our penances." A huge mural in the Visitation Monastery of Thonon in the Chablais gives another clue to the Saint's success: It pictures him and his cousin Louis invoking the Guardian Angel of the diocese as they approached the region for the first time. And it will be recalled that in his youth St. Francis had promised Our Lady to pray the Rosary daily. His apostolic use of intelligence, perseverance and personal contact were certainly fueled and directed by much grace.

St. Francis' own beautiful personality played a large part here, as it would for the rest of his apostolic life. He took time to speak with the peasants, joining in the daily chitchat. To a talkative old woman who loved to converse with him and who one day said she was scandalized by the celibacy of the clergy, St. Francis answered, "But, my dear, you keep on coming to see me. Think of the time it takes to talk to you. How on earth could I manage to help you with all your difficulties if I had a wife and children!"

Slowly the tide began to turn, such that on Christmas day of 1596 St. Francis felt bold enough to offer the first public Mass offered in Thonon in 60 years. (He had made that city his headquarters some time before.) The fact that there was no public disturbance on this occasion was in itself a sign of the great progress made in the preceding two years. The church furnishings were gone, and he had to make do with, as he expressed it, a "badly made, simple wooden altar we put together for Christmas."

Having the Mass gave the Catholics new heart and set many Calvinists to thinking. The following Lent, however, some of the latter created a great disturbance when St. Francis proceeded to restore the old Catholic custom of giving out ashes; in the face of threats of prison and even death, he had to retreat out an open door. When St. Francis de Sales had been in the area three years, he organized a Forty Hours Adoration of continual solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, accompanied by constant prayers. This was then a new devotion which had started in Italy, but was not yet widespread. It was still too risky to hold it in the city of Thonon, but a procession of 500 people began in Thonon and moved 18 miles to the town of Annemasse, where the devotion would be held. Another procession, headed by the Bishop, came up from Annecy. Many more people joined along the way, and in the end something like 30,000, including some curious Calvinists, were present. A year later Forty Hours Devotion was again held, this time in Thonon itself. At this occasion, many Protestants asked to be Baptized and confirmed----200 from one parish, 60 from another, etc. Priests and a bishop were busy administering the Sacraments. Another Forty Hours was held two weeks later, attended by officials of Church and State. On this occasion the Papal Legate was present to receive the abjurations of Protestantism from many notable persons; the Vatican Archives has a list of some 2,300.

Around this time there was a stir over a report of a miracle attributed to St. Francis de Sales. A baby, the child of a Protestant mother, had died without Baptism. St. Francis had gone to speak to the mother about Catholic doctrine, and prayed that the child would be restored to life long enough to receive Baptism. His prayer was granted, and the whole family became Catholic.
 
With souls being won back to God and the Church, St. Francis' task became one of an administrator who had to reopen parishes and obtain the missals, chalices, crosses and other needed items which had disappeared over the years. Around 18 parishes would come back into operation. A priest named Père Cherubin would largely take charge of these matters, with St. Francis de Sales in the background to help out in difficulties. At this point, St. Francis was still only 31 years old.

Soon after the conversion of the Chablais, political conflicts again arose to test the new converts' faith, but they held firm. This is a testimony to the fact that St. Francis had gone right to the core with his little tracts, dismantling the very heart of the Calvinist position, rather than simply engaging in ostentatious rhetoric. And of course he went beyond tearing down, as he worked to rebuild the edifice of faith that had been possessed by the Catholic ancestors of these peasants of the Chablais three generations before.

When one considers the poor prospects of success St. Francis had faced at the beginning of his mission to the Chablais, the results are rightly seen as truly remarkable. In one of his later sermons St. Francis would assure his hearers that no amount of preaching and exhortation will produce religious vocations, which are something only God can give; he would certainly affirm the same thing with regard to conversions to the Faith. We can be sure that we will never on this earth know the full story behind the remarkable success of St. Francis de Sales' mission to the Chablais.

We are indeed blessed to have, four centuries later, these tracts which were so instrumental in so many conversions. They are still apropos today, as the same objections against the Faith have unfortunately seen a resurgence in recent years. We hope that St. Francis de Sales' pamphlets may still work today to clear away obstacles to the acceptance of the Catholic Faith in minds and hearts and lead many back to that ancient and ever fresh and 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.

----The Publishers, November 28, 1989




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