Jeanne-Antide Thouret

On April 11, 1799, in Besançon, Jeanne-Antide Thouret opened a free school for poor girls and organized the distribution of broth to the indigent: this was the founding act of the congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Besançon. Joined by her first companions, she multiplied her works: dispensaries, pharmacies, sewing workshops, home visits to the sick, and care for prisoners. The popular nickname of "sisters of the broth and the little schools" testifies to this rooting in the daily service of the most humble. From 1802 to 1807, she drafted the rule of the institute, which received its first civil recognition in 1807 under the name of the Sisters of Charity of Besançon. Called to Naples in November 1810 with several sisters, she took charge of the Hospital for the Incurables, opened a school and a pharmacy, and extended the congregation to Southern Italy, Savoy, and Switzerland. On July 23, 1819, Pope Pius VII approved the constitutions of the institute. The final years of the foundress were marked by a painful division between the Besançon branch and the Neapolitan branch, which she lived through in fidelity to the Apostolic See.

The holiness of Jeanne-Antide Thouret is rooted in the Vincentian tradition: to see and serve Christ in the poor, the sick, the abandoned child, and the prisoner. Her spirituality combines a confident faith in Providence with a great firmness of character, which allowed her to pursue her work through the Revolution, exile, and ecclesiastical contradictions. Several sayings are attributed to her that summarize her spirit: her willingness to "cross the seas, go to the ends of the earth" if God willed it, her conviction that "when God calls and one listens to Him, He provides everything necessary," and her filial attachment to the Church, which she expressed by calling herself a "daughter of the holy Church." Confronted with the division of her institute, she chose to retire to Naples, heartbroken but faithful, rather than break unity with the Holy See. Her reputation for holiness, founded on her heroic charity and obedience, spread immediately after her death among the sisters and the poor she had served, preparing the way for the opening of her cause.

The cause of Jeanne-Antide Thouret reached its conclusion under the pontificate of Pius XI. She was beatified on May 23, 1926, in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and then canonized by the same pope on January 14, 1934. According to the congregation's sources, two healings recognized by the Vatican's medical commission supported the cause: the sudden healing, during the beatification celebration, of Sister Paola Alieri, who suffered from severe heart failure, which was accepted for the beatification; and that of Sister Cecilia Pastena, healed of an ear condition then considered incurable, which was accepted for the canonization. Her liturgical feast is set for August 24, the anniversary of her death, and is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology; the congregation she founded also commemorates May 23, the anniversary of her beatification. Her statue is among those of the founders and foundresses of religious orders placed in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.

The legacy of Jeanne-Antide Thouret is perpetuated through the congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Jeanne-Antide Thouret, present, according to recent data from the institute, in about thirty countries on several continents and still engaged in education, the care of the sick, and the service of the poorest. Her figure remains closely linked to Besançon, where her work began, as well as to Naples, where she died and where a part of her memory rests. In Franche-Comté, her native village of Sancey honors her memory and celebrated the bicentenary of the founding work. Inscribed in the great tradition of Vincentian charity, she is venerated as a model of devotion to the poor and of fidelity to the Church through the upheavals of her time. Her spirituality of unconditional service to the most destitute continues to inspire the religious, social works, and the faithful who claim her example.