GIOVANNA ANTIDA THOURET, Saint
Born at Sancey-le-Lond (Doubs) on 27 Nov. 1765, died at Naples on 24 Aug. 1826. Having been formed in compassion for the poor and the sick, in goodness and self-denial, at the age of sixteen she began to feel a strong religious vocation. After bitter struggles with her father, she took the habit of the Daughters of Charity in Paris. Her novitiate was interrupted for reasons of health, and she was sent to Burgundy and to Langres to recover; but the outbreak of the Revolution forced her, on her return to Paris, to lay aside the habit and abandon the house. After unprecedented sufferings she reached Besançon, passed into Switzerland, and, returning to Lançey, opened a school there through many difficulties, refusing moreover to take the oath to the civil constitution.
With the fall of Robespierre and the coming of a relative calm, on 11 Apr. 1799 in Via Martelots at Besançon she opened a school for girls which produced excellent results. Soon several young ladies joined her, thus giving rise to the Institute of the Sisters of Charity (v.), which with other houses spread to many cities of France. Retiring to Dole, she was able to give better attention to the organization and development of her work, for the spread of which she went with a companion to Naples in 1810, where through bitter struggles she succeeded in opening a new house. On 23 July 1819 Pius VII approved the new Institute, but Abp. de Pressigny of Besançon, imbued with Gallican errors, refused to recognize the constitutions approved by Rome, forbade Thouret to return to Besançon or to consider herself superior of the houses in the diocese, claiming to be the Institute’s superior general. Thouret died without having seen the unification of her work, which occurred only after the death of de Pressigny; yet the Institute she founded is today one of the largest and most widespread for the exercise of manifold works of charity.
She was beatified by Pius XI on 23 May 1926 and canonized on 14 Jan. 1934.