Louis Aloysius Lootens

Louis Aloysius Lootens (March 17, 1827 – January 12, 1898) was a Belgian prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Vancouver Island in British Columbia in Canada from 1876 to 1898. He previously served as the first vicar apostolic of Idaho and Western Montana in the United States from 1868 to 1876.

Biography Early life Louis Lootens was born in Bruges in what was then the Southern Netherlands on March 17, 1827, the fourth of nine children of Charles and Catherine (née Beyaert) Lootens. His father was a carpenter and his mother was a lacemaker. After receiving his classical education in his native Belgium, he studied for the priesthood at the seminary at Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet in Paris, France.

During his final year of studies, Bishop Modeste Demers was touring Europe to recruit priests for the Diocese of Vancouver Island and Lootens offered his services.

Priesthood

Lootens was ordained a priest by Demers in Paris for the Diocese of Vancouver Island on June 14, 1851. The following year Lootens, Demers, and two other clerics arrived in Victoria in the Colony of British Columbia on August 29, 1852.

After five years of missionary work at mining camps and Native American villages in the Cariboo and Fraser Valley region, Lootens was accepted into the Archdiocese of San Francisco in June 1857.

Vicar Apostolic of Idaho On March 3, 1868, Lootens was appointed the first vicar apostolic of the Vicariate Apostolic of Idaho and Montana and titular bishop of Castabala by Pope Pius IX. The first Catholic church in Boise was dedicated in December 1870 but it burned down just a month later in January 1871.

In 1866, when the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore had proposed creating a vicariate, Idaho was in the midst of its first mining boom. However, by the 1870s, the placer mining industry was beginning to fail and large numbers of miners were leaving.

Lootens died in Victoria on January 12, 1898, at age 70.