“France, My daughter, why do you persecute me?”

What shall I say to you now, dear sons and daughters of France, who groan beneath the weight of persecution? The people who made an alliance with God at the baptismal font of Rheims will repent and return to its first vocation. Her faults will not remain unpunished, but she will never perish, the daughter of so many merits, so many sighs, and so many tears.

A day will come, and we hope it will not be far, when France, like Saul on the road to Damascus, will be surrounded by a heavenly light and will hear a voice repeating to her, “My daughter, why do you persecute me?” And to her response, “Who art thou, Lord?” The voice will reply, “I am Jesus, whom you persecute. It is hard for you to kick against the goad, because, in your obstinacy, you destroy yourself.”

And she, trembling and astonished, will say, “Lord, what wouldst thou have me do?” And He will say, “Rise up, wash the filth that has disfigured you, awaken in your heart those dormant affections and the pact of our alliance and go, eldest daughter of the Church, predestined nation, vessel of election, go, as in the past, and carry my name before all peoples and before the kings of the earth.”

Pope Saint Pius X, The Allocution Vi Ringrazio (November 29, 1911)