Peter Faber

A recognized master of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, Pierre Favre favored personal accompaniment and dialogue over flamboyant preaching. From 1540, he led an itinerant apostolic life in the service of the Holy See and the Emperor. Sent to Germany, he participated in the colloquies of Worms (1540) and Regensburg (1541), where he sought to revive Christian life in the face of the Reformation, convinced that it was first necessary to reform morals and hearts. He then worked in Speyer, Mainz, and Cologne, where he helped establish the presence of the Society in Germanic lands around 1543-1544. It was he who gave the Spiritual Exercises to Peter Canisius, a future Doctor of the Church. Favre also carried his apostolate to Spain and Portugal, where, supported by the court, he fostered the establishment of the Society. He left behind letters and a Memorial, a spiritual journal written between 1542 and 1545, which serves as a testimony to his inner life and devotion. In 1546, Ignatius designated him as the representative of the Society at the Council of Trent, a mission he could not fulfill, as death surprised him upon his arrival in Rome.

The holiness of Pierre Favre unfolded less in brilliant works than in the quality of his listening and discernment. Contemporaries and historians describe him as a man of gentleness, capable of engaging in dialogue with everyone, even those furthest from the faith, and skilled at leading souls through the path of the Spiritual Exercises. His Memorial reveals an interior life nourished by a confident devotion, where he invited others to let Christ occupy the center of the heart. Reserved, scrupulous, but deeply loving, he favored the patient conversion of individuals over doctrinal polemics, believing that one must win hearts before reforming institutions. This manner of accompaniment, made of kindness and proximity, earned him a reputation for holiness very early on, which continued to grow after his death. Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pontiff, has many times presented Favre as a model of a pastor attentive to dialogue, gentleness, and discernment, and confided to the journal La Civiltà Cattolica that this discreet companion of Ignatius was his favorite Jesuit figure.

The cult rendered to Pierre Favre as blessed was solemnly approved by Pope Pius IX on September 5, 1872, confirming a veneration attested since his death. More than a century later, on December 17, 2013, the day of his seventy-seventh birthday, Pope Francis decreed his canonization. He resorted to the procedure known as equipollent (or equivalent) canonization, which allows the pope to extend the cult of a blessed to the universal Church and to enroll him in the catalogue of saints without a formal canonical process or required miracle, when three conditions are met: an ancient cult, a lasting reputation for virtues and miracles, and their transmission by trustworthy historians. No miracle was therefore required for this canonization. The liturgical memory of Saint Pierre Favre is celebrated on August 2, the day after the anniversary of his death which occurred on August 1; some sources mention either of these two dates interchangeably.

The first priest of the Society of Jesus and co-founder of the order with Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, Pierre Favre occupies a unique place in Jesuit history. His remains rest in the crypt of the Church of the Gesù in Rome, the mother house of the Society. His influence is measured first by the dissemination of the Spiritual Exercises, of which he was one of the first great transmitters, as well as by his role in the establishment of the order in Germany and the Iberian Peninsula. His Memorial, a spiritual journal edited notably by Michel de Certeau in the 20th century, remains a precious source of original Ignatian spirituality. The rediscovery of his figure owes much to Pope Francis, who held him as a model of the Jesuit dedicated to dialogue and discernment. Many institutions and parishes today bear his name, particularly in his native diocese of Annecy as well as in several universities and Jesuit establishments throughout the world.