death of Abbot Jacques Oeuvray… “Dûe vôs voidgeuche!” – Swiss Catholic portal

“May God keep you!” address the Jura dialect speakers to “their” abbot Jacques Oeuvray, who died on October 9, 2024 in Cameroon, in his 81^e year. A jovial figure from the pastoral Jura, Ajoulot spent a few days in his adopted country.

“He wanted to go say goodbye to his friends in Cameroon, because he felt that his health was declining,” declared episcopal delegate Marie-Andrée Beuret to Daily Jura. “He had health problems which required his rapid hospitalization, which he did not survive,” specifies the pastoral theologian, confirming the terms published by RFJ (Radio Frequency Jura).

In 1996, Father Jacques founded the Association of Friends ofInstitute of People’s Development d’Elig-Mfomo (IPPE) to promote a school created by Father Emile, a Cameroonian priest, in 1989 near Obala, north of Yaoundé, the country’s capital. With the support of various Jura supporters – political, public, agricultural and religious – Jacques Oeuvray then developed an agricultural institute in Obala.

Since 2009, the emeritus canon had become the guardian of the Lorette chapel in Porrentruy, welcoming all those passing through. cath.ch met him during the pandemic.

For around thirty years, Jacques Oeuvray has celebrated mass in Jura dialect several times a year, in order to perpetuate this true regional oral tradition.

L’Ajoulot knew how to use his talent as an orator during his homilies, particularly during masses in patois where he paraphrased passages from the Bible, regularly telling funny stories, in French as in patois, sometimes provoking bursts of laughter, even applause from the assembly. His last radio mass on RTS-Espace 2 took place in Boncourt in 2021.

Jacques Oeuvray was also involved in numerous organizations. He was notably an initiating member of the Winter Relief Foundation – Jura and the Œuvre Jurassienne de Secours, from 1980 to 2015. In the last years of his life, he was also engaged as a spiritual advisor to the Christian Movement of Retirees ( MCR), the hospital chaplain and with the sick. He was also still present for the 100^e French-speaking spring pilgrimage to Lourdes. Without forgetting his services as auxiliary priest in the new Ajoie Pastoral Space – Clos du Doubs.

During the celebration of his 50 years of ordination to the priesthood in Cœuve, celebrated in March 2024, many people paid him warm tribute. These testimonies of friendship and recognition “were his greatest gift,” he confided to his audience at the end of the mass, reports the Communication center of the pastoral Jura.

Born in Cœuve on December 4, 1943, Jacques Oeuvray first completed an apprenticeship as a typographer at The Good Press in Porrentruy, then rotativist at the newspaper The Country. It was on the benches of the church of Cœuve that he responded to a vocational call and took the road to the diocesan seminary of Fribourg. Ordained priest in his village in 1974, he was then appointed vicar in Moutier (1974-1978) then dean of Porrentruy (1978-1985) surrounded by a pastoral team that he helped to set up.

Jacques Oeuvray continued his ministry in Delémont (1985-1998) and returned to Ajoie, within the pastoral team of Eau-Vive in Boncourt (1998-2009), before being installed as chaplain of Notre-Dame de Lorette in Porrentruy, until the end of her life.

In May 2014, he presided over a TV mass on RTS 1 in Porrentruy:

He was also named Canon of the Republic and Canton of Jura in 1992, a position he held until 2011, before passing the baton to Canon Jean-Marie Nusbaume. This position of unique canon serves to act as a link between the Catholic Church in Jura and the cantonal authorities, as well as with the other canons of the diocese of Basel, particularly when a new bishop is chosen. (cath.ch/gr)