Jacques Loew was born in 1908 in Clermont-Ferrand, the only child of August Pierre Loew, a medical doctor, and Jeanne Maximilienne (née Gerber).[2] The family comprised middle-class socialists and Dreyfusards with anti-clerical sentiments.[3] Loew grew up in Nice and, although he was baptized Catholic, he attended Protestant Sunday school.[2] He later studied law and political science in Paris, before finishing his schooling at the Sanatorium Universitaire in Leysin, Switzerland, due to a case of tuberculosis.[2] When his schooling was complete, he registered with the bar in Nice, but his nascent law career was disrupted by another bout of tuberculosis.[2][6] Returning to the sanatorium in Leysin for medical treatment, he converted to Catholicism at 24 after reading the Gospel.[6] Prior to his official reception into the Catholic Church, he traveled to La Valsainte, a Carthusian monastery in Gruyère, Switzerland, where he was particularly impressed by the dom, Jean-Baptiste Porion [fr], who further solidified his conversion and encouraged him to meet Stanislas Fumet [fr] and his wife, Ainouta, who encouraged him further.[2] He was fully received into the Catholic Church in October 1932, with the Fumets serving as his sponsors.[2]
The sanatorium in Leysin in 1927, about five years before Loew converted to Catholicism there
In 1934, Loew joined the Dominican Order, becoming a friar in 1935 before being ordained a priest in 1939.[2][6][1] Soon after, he began working alongside Louis-Joseph Lebret with the Economie et Humanisme group in Lyons,[6] as one of its founders.[2] Lebret instructed him to learn about the working class and study its condition in order to better be able to minister to it, particularly to the French secularized working class.[1][3][2][6] In 1941, he began to work in Marseilles as a longshoreman, which gave him a lasting impression about the distance between working people and the priesthood.[1][6][3][5] Between 1942 and 1944, Loew and about ten priests established the Popular Family Movement (Mouvement populaire des familles, MPF) and four of them requested the Bishop of Marseilles, Jean Delay [fr], authorize them to begin evangelizing "in the framework of a missionary parish".[2] In November 1945, Delay entrusted the parish of Saint-Louis [fr], a working-class neighborhood north of Marseilles, to two diocesans – Jean Gentile and Georges Hallauer – and two Dominican religious – Loew and André Piet.[2] The presence of factories and communists as well as its proximity to the docks and the absence of any strong religious communities made it appeal to the worker-priest missionaries.[2]
In 1947, Loew was entrusted with the parish at La Cabucelle [fr] and later the one at Port-de-Bouc,[4] which contained several secular priests who were sympathetic to Loew's views on labor.[6] Loew eventually advocated that some priests should work in labor, such as car factories, in order to better understand the everyday lives of their flocks.[1] In 1947, Karol Wojtyła – who later became Pope John Paul II – visited Loew in Marseilles and was impressed by the work, writing afterward: "Father Loew came to the conclusion that the [Dominican] white habit by itself does not say anything any more today [...] Living among workers he decided to become one of them."[1]
Wojtyła considered the work to be "apostolic" and the only correct way for the Church in France to reach non-believers.[1] As the worker-priest movement took on a greater role in left-wing politics – Loew had at one point briefly joined the General Confederation of Labour[2] – the Vatican became concerned that the role of priest was being subordinated to the role of worker.[1] In 1951, Loew sent a long defense of the movement to Giovanni Montini, then-assistant secretary of state for the Vatican who would later become Pope Paul VI.[1] Despite Loew's defense, the worker-priests in Marseilles were ordered to stop work in the summer of 1953[2] and Pope Pius XII formally condemned the movement in 1954.[1][3][6] Loew resigned his labor work and continued his priestly duties, though he continued to defend the idea of priests in labor, writing that "[o]f course a priest can belong to a trade union. This does not mean selling out your priesthood."[1]
Later, Loew continued his ministry, establishing the Mission ouvrière Saints-Pierre-et-Paul [fr]inAix-en-Provence in 1955, serving as superior general until 1973.[4] After the mission's foundation, he went to Africa, later moving to São Paulo in 1963.[2][3] The intensity of the mission's work – which was managing operations in France, the Sahara, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, and Japan[2] – caused Loew to leave the Dominican Order in order to devote himself wholly to the mission's cause.[3][2] In 1965, Paul VI recognized the mission as an apostolic institute,[2] commenting that he wished "this new foundation, which flows from the love of Christ the worker, grows and makes the love of the Father shine".[3]
In 1969, he moved to Fribourg, Switzerland, where he and René Voillaume established the School of the Faith,[5] which served as an educational institution for educators.[1] Loew remained the director until his retirement in 1981.[4] In 1971, Paul VI invited Loew to preach the Lenten retreat at the Vatican.[1]
Les dockers de Marseilles ('The Longshoremen of Marseilles', 1944)[7]
En mission proletarienne ('On Proletarian Mission', 1946)[8][1]
Si vous saviez le don de Dieu ('If You Knew the Gift of God', 1958)
Journal d'une mission ouvrière ('Journal of One Worker's Mission', 1959)[6][9]
Dynamisme de la foi et incroyance ('Dynamism of Faith and Unbelief', co-authored with Georges Cottier, 1963)[10]
Comme s'il voyait l'invisible: Un portrait de l'apôtre d'aujourd'hui ('As If He Saw the Invisible: A Portrait of the Modern-Day Apostle', 1964)[3][11][b]
Dans la nuit, j'ai cherché ('In the Night, I Sought', 1969)[12]
La Flamme qui dévore le berger: pour une spiritualité de l'évangélisation ('The Flame That Devours the Shepherd: For a Spirituality of Evangelizing', 1969)[13]
À temps et à contretemps: Retrouver dans l'Église le visage de Jésus-Christ ('On Time and Off Beat: Rediscovering the Face of Jesus Christ in the Church', co-authored with Yves Congar and René Voillaume, 1969)[14][c]
Ce Jésus qu'on appelle Christ: Retraite au Vatican en 1970 ('This Jesus We Call Christ: Retreat to the Vatican in 1970', 1970)[15]
Les Cieux ouverts: chronique de la mission Saints Pierre et Paul ('The Open Skies: A Chronicle of the Sts. Peter and Paul Mission', 1971)[16]
La prière à l'école des grands priants ('Prayer at the School of Great Praying', 1975)[17]
Face to Face with God: the Bible's Way to Prayer (in English, 1977)[18]
Vous serez mes disciples: Annonciateurs de l'Évangile, réflexions et réflexes ('You Will Be My Disciples: Announcers of the Gospel, Reflections and Reflexes', 1978)[19]
Paraboles et Fariboles ('Parables and Nonsense', co-authored with Jacques Faizant, 1978)[20]
Histoire de l'Église par elle-même ('History of the Church Herself', co-authored with Michel Meslin, 1978)[21]
Parole de Dieu: Langage humain et communautés chrétiennes ('Word of God: Human Language and Christian Communities', co-authored with Pierre Grelot, 1980)[22]
Mon Dieu dont je suis sûr ('My God of Which I Am Certain', 1983)[23][d]
La vie à l'écoute des grands priants ('The Life of Listening to Great Prayers', 1986)[24]
Le bonheur d'être homme ('The Joy of Being Human', co-authored with Dominique Xardel, 1988)[25]
Jésus, où te chercher? ('Jesus, Where to Find Thee?', 1992)[26]
Vivre l'Évangile avec Madeleine Delbrêl ('Living the Gospel with Madeleine Delbrêl', 1994)[27]
^The Independent erroneously reports the date of death as 13 February;[1] other sources uniformly report 14 February.[2][3][4][5]
^Two subtitles exist for this book: Un portrait de l'apôtre d'aujourd'hui ('A Portrait of the Modern-Day Apostle') and Être apôtre à l'école de saint Paul ('Being an Apostle in the School of St. Paul')
^Each author wrote one part of the book; Congar wrote the first part (Autorité et liberté dans l'Église, 'Authority and Liberty in the Church'), Voillaume the second (Les conditions d'une saine rénovation, 'The Conditions of a Healthy Renewal'), and Loew the third (Être hantés par Jésus-Christ, 'Being Haunted by Jesus Christ').
^Xardel, Paul; Loew, Jacques (1993). La flamme qui dévore le berger (in French). ISBN978-2-204-04881-1.
^Loew, Jacques; Congar, Yves; Voillaume, René (1969). À temps et à contretemps: Retrouver dans l'Église le visage de Jésus-Christ [On Time and Off Beat: Rediscovering the Face of Jesus Christ in the Church]. CERF.
^Loew, Jacques; Meslin, Michel (1978). Histoire de l'Église par elle-même [History of the Church Herself] (in French). Paris: Fayard. ISBN2-213-00706-3.
^Loew, Jacques; Grelot, Pierre (1980). Parole de Dieu: Langage humain et communautés chrétiennes [Word of God: Human Language and Christian Communities] (in French).
^Loew, Jacques (1983). Mon Dieu dont je suis sûr [My God of Which I Am Certain] (in French). ISBN978-2-7289-0165-4.
^Loew, Jacques (1992). Jésus, où te chercher? [Jesus, Where to Find Thee?] (in French). ISBN978-2-907429-23-8.
^Loew, Jacques (1994). Vivre l'Évangile avec Madeleine Delbrêl [Living the Gospel with Madeleine Delbrêl] (in French). Paris: Centurion. ISBN2-227-43612-3.
Préat, Marie-Paule (1974). Jacques Loew ou Le défi évangélique [Jacques Loew or the Evangelist Challenge] (in French). Paris: Fayard Mame. ISBN2-250-00599-0.
Bérard, Marie-Gabrielle (2000). Jacques Loew, serviteur de la parole [Jacques Loew, Server of the Word] (in French). Saint-Maurice: Editions Saint-Augustin. ISBN2-88011-176-5.
Masson, Robert (2000). Jacques Loew: Ce qui s'appelle la Foi [Jacques Loew: What Is Called Faith] (in French). ISBN978-2-84573-029-8.
Cougoul, Bernard (2006). Prier 15 jours avec Jacques Loew [Praying for 15 Days With Jacques Loew] (in French). ISBN978-2-85313-494-1.
Convert, Georges (2008). La quête de Dieu: De l'athéisme à la nuit de la foi [The Quest for God: From Atheism to the Night of Faith] (in French). Paris: Desclée de Brouwer. ISBN978-2-220-05978-5.
