Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Francis de Sales was born in 1567 into a noble family of Savoy and studied law in Paris and Padua before becoming a priest. From 1594 he worked in the Chablais region south of Lake Geneva, which had become Protestant; when people would not come to hear him, he wrote short leaflets and slipped them under their doors. In 1602 he became bishop of Geneva, living at Annecy.

His Introduction to the Devout Life (1609) taught that a life of prayer is possible for people in the world, not only for monks, and it is still widely read. With Jane Frances de Chantal he founded the Order of the Visitation in 1610. He died in Lyon on 28 December 1622. He was named a Doctor of the Church in 1877 and the patron of writers and journalists in 1923.