St. Louis IX, King of France, represented, with a plenitude that rarely appears in history, the Catholic man as the Church wants him to be, the layman living in the world and taking his fulfilment of the Commandments of God’s Law to the highest perfection. In this manner, while mixed with all the others, he nevertheless surpassed them all.
He was a man in the fullest sense of the term, to prove that men must be holy in everyday life. A man at once strong and kind; just, equitable, but, for this very reason, aware of his rights; one who knows how to make himself feared and respected, as well as to give each person his due. He was the utterly trusting king, to the point of candour; consummately astute, to the depths of his being.
St. Louis embodied the “summum” of human majesty, proving that a king can be great and impose himself, not merely because he occupies the throne and is surrounded by royal splendour, but because he is a Catholic man. ◊
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
St. Louis IX – Sainte-Chapelle, Paris
