John Francis Regis

Jean -François Régis ( German: Johannes - Francis Régis ) SJ ( born January 31, 1597 Fontcouverte, Languedoc, France, † December 30, 1640 in La Louvesc, Dauphine, France) was a French Jesuit missionary and preacher, who in the Catholic Church is venerated as a saint.

Régis attended a Jesuit college and entered the novitiate of the Jesuits on 8 December 1616. By 31, he was ordained a priest. He appeared in the Languedoc and the neighboring provinces. He devoted much of his lifetime of preaching among the poor in controlled areas of the Huguenots of France. His style of preaching was said to be simple and direct and took place at the uneducated rural population very well received. He set up a kind of women's shelters for prostitutes and allowed them an alternative form of income, such as lace-makers, which is why he is also considered the patron saint of lace makers. This pastoral earned him many slanders and hatred. Jean Régis worked among others with victims of the plague in Toulouse.

Régis founded confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament, who collected for charitable purpose money and food from the rich. He died on December 30, 1640 in the small village of La Louvesc, Dauphine of pneumonia. He was born on June 16, 1737 by Pope Clement XII. canonized together with Vincent de Paul, Catherine of Genoa and of Juliana Falconieri. His Catholic feast day is December 31.