GIOVANNI FRANCESCO REGIS, saint. — Jesuit, born on 31 January 1597 at Fontcouverte (Aude). He studied with the Jesuits at Béziers and entered the Order on 8 December 1616 at Toulouse. From 1632 he worked as a missionary in Languedoc, in the vicinity of Montpellier, in Vivarais, Forez, and Velay, filled with zeal for souls. In winter he devoted himself to the apostolate in the most remote villages of the countryside and mountains; in summer, in the cities, founding social works for the redemption of fallen women, for the assistance of the less well-off, and for the preservation and strengthening of the faith, especially through confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament. He died in the midst of his labors, half-buried by the snow, in the village of Lalouvesc (Ardèche),
on 31 December 1640. He was beatified in 1716 and canonized by Clement XII in 1737. His feast is celebrated on 16 June.
At the time of the anti-Jesuit campaign in France (1712), the Jansenists spread the rumor that the Saint had been dismissed from the Order before his death. The matter was immediately investigated at the behest of a papal commission (1712), and again later (1879), and was found to be a pure invention. The great devotion of the faithful toward s. F. R. gave rise to the «Société de st. F. R.», founded in Paris (1 March 1826) with the aim of encouraging the legitimization of illicit and invalid unions (subsequently spreading in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland, and Italy), and to the association of the «Fratelli di s. F. R.» at Roche Arnauld (Le Puy), for the education of orphans and their preparation for work. A Congregation of «Suore di s. Fr. R.» was also established at Lalouvesc by the priest Therme in 1830 for the care of the sick.