That Disturbing DeSales

I could imagine this as the headline in the local daily newspaper in Chablais during the evangelism campaign of St. Frances. I am sure he caused no small disturbance as he preached and ministered to an area that had been mostly Protestant for over 40 years. As I continue to read the tracts, Catholic Controversies, a pattern emerges. He attempts to get his reader to see the novelty of their religion compared with the antiquity of Catholicism. Since the reformation religions were no older than 80 years, this was not an unreasonable argument. He uses the unity of Catholic doctrine vs the diversity of doctrines that had already developed as a way to get his readers to question the value of sola scriptura. He also relied heavily on the writings of the Church fathers as we do today. He makes no apologies in insisting that Catholicism is the One True Church in continuity with Jesus and the teachings of the apostles.

I sometimes wonder how he was so successful using these arguments when nowadays they fall on deaf ears and are so easily dismissed as "sophistry."I have to realize that St. Francis DeSales was presenting arguments that some of the listeners had never heard before. Since the reformation was fairly new, perhaps the "mythology" of "false" Catholic beliefs had not yet become part of the culture. After all, there were no Chick tracts, or Gendrons then and Loraine Bottner's famous anti-Catholic encyclopedia had not been written yet. To be sure, there was Protestant literature and the reformers were prolific writers, but perhaps the anti-papist- colored glasses were not as widely available. Also at this time, everyone had relatives, grandparents etc in their genealogy who were Catholic and this may have had a salutory effect as well.