St. Francis de Sales

Mike Pettit

The collected works of de Sales are now on community pricing where the blurb states that:

"When St. Francis de Sales was a young, newly ordained priest, he was sent to the Calvinist stronghold of Geneva for a monumental missionary endeavor: convert a hostile, Protestant territory back to Catholicism. In spite of extreme opposition, the mission was declared a success when an envoy of the Pope declared the region free of Calvinist rule."

Now we all like to put the best spin on things we can but this seems to be completely wrong, and I am sure would come as a shock to the Genevans at the time. It is clear that de Sales had some success in converting some towns that had been returned to Savoy but is this what the blurb is inaccurately referring to or am I missing something in my understanding of Geneva's history?

NB.Mick

The collected works of de Sales are now on community pricing where the blurb states that:

"When St. Francis de Sales was a young, newly ordained priest, he was sent to the Calvinist stronghold of Geneva for a monumental missionary endeavor: convert a hostile, Protestant territory back to Catholicism. In spite of extreme opposition, the mission was declared a success when an envoy of the Pope declared the region free of Calvinist rule."

Now we all like to put the best spin on things we can but this seems to be completely wrong, and I am sure would come as a shock to the Genevans at the time. It is clear that de Sales had some success in converting some towns that had been returned to Savoy but is this what the blurb is inaccurately referring to or am I missing something in my understanding of Geneva's history?

I'm no specialist is counter-reformation history, but at least the German Wikipedia entry confirms that story - noting that it refers to the region around Geneva (Chablais) which had turned to Calvinism but came back to RC convictions due to Francis' preaching and use of printed tractates. Note that the city of Geneva itself remained Calvinist and Francis, having been made bishop of Geneva, had to reside in a nearby city.  

EDIT: And thanks a lot for telling that some of his works (Practical Piety and The Catholic Controversy plus one about his mission to the Geneva region) are now on community pricing ! Looking forward to having these in Logos.