St. Francis de Sales

Bishop of Geneva, exiled by the Calvinist city to nearby Annecy, where he labored to bring back the Chablais region to the Catholic faith — slipping pamphlets under doors when sermons could not be preached. His Introduction to the Devout Life and Treatise on the Love of God taught a tender, accessible holiness for laypeople in the world.

Born into a noble Savoyard family in 1567, Francis studied law and theology in Paris and Padua before being ordained. His mission to the Chablais, undertaken largely alone and at great personal risk, won back some sixty thousand souls to Catholicism through patient conversation, written tracts, and quiet personal holiness rather than force or coercion.

With St. Jane de Chantal he co-founded the Order of the Visitation, designed for women whose health or age barred them from the rigors of existing convents. He died in Lyon in 1622 and was named a Doctor of the Church in 1877. His gentleness became proverbial — "A spoonful of honey catches more flies than a barrel of vinegar" — and he remains the patron saint of writers and journalists.