Francis de Sales' heroic efforts to bring Calvinists back to the Faith comes this succinct, eloquent defense of the age-old Catholic practice of making the Sign of the Cross, which 16th century Calvinists denounced as a Popish invention and many Protestants scorn even today. Along with St. Francis's other lucid explanations of the Catholic Faith and his undaunted love even for those who hated him, this modest book helped restore to their native Catholic faith tens of thousands of people who not long before were intent on killing him.As they did for the Calvinists in St. Francis's day, so in our day these ably translated pages will bring you a better understanding of and a renewed love for the Sign of the Cross, that brief and lively exterior prayer by which, from time immemorial, God has been invoked by serious Christians before all of their endeavors.

    Clement XII condemned the order in 1738, as did Benedict XIV in 1751. This was followed by interdicts by Pius VII in 1821, Leo XII in 1826, Pius VIII in 1829, Gregory XVI in 1832, and Pius IX in 1846. The encyclical Humanum Genus by Leo XIII was the most ambitious attack yet, and linked Masonry to deism and Gnosticism. It remains perhaps the most sweeping condemnation by the Roman Catholic Church of the Masonic movement, and has been the source of considerable conflict and confrontation ever since it was issued.