Sainte Thérèse, patronne de la France : la petite voie pour un pays redevenu terre de mission
Et si Pie XII avait vu juste dès 1944 ? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🇬🇧 English summary On 3 May 1944, while France was still occupied, Pope Pius XII proclaimed Saint Thérèse of Lisieux a secondary patroness of France alongside Saint Joan of Arc , under the principal patronage of Our Lady of the Assumption. The choice was not merely devotional. Pius XII explicitly linked Thérèse’s patronage of France to her role as patroness of the missions , describing the country itself, devastated by war both materially and spiritually, as a field in need of missionary cultivation. More than eighty years later, the words sound unexpectedly contemporary. France is far more secularised, yet adult baptisms are rising sharply and a new generation is rediscovering Christianity. Perhaps Thérèse’s mission for France is not finished. Perhaps it is only becoming fully understandable now. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Le 1er octobre, la France fête aussi l’une de ses patronnes Le 1er octobre , l’Égli...