Jacques Fesch

A 24-year-old unrepentant Frenchman was arrested for murder on February 24, 1954. Almost sixty years later, he is being considered for canonization.

Jacques Fesch was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France on April 6, 1930. His father was an atheist, distant to his son and unfaithful to his wife, whom he eventually divorced. His parents failed to pay him much attention as he grew up, resulting in Jacques not taking an interest in his schoolwork, or in his high-paying job at the bank after he graduated. He quit his occupation to live the life of a playboy. To the horror of his anti-Semitic parents, in 1951 he married Pierette, a Catholic girl with a Jewish father. The marriage did not last long, though; Jacques continued to see other women, and had an illegitimate son with one of them, whom he abandoned to public care. He and Pierette soon broke up.

Disillusioned with life, Jacques dreamed of starting over. He asked his parents to pay for him to purchase a boat and sail around the South Pacific. They refused. Jacques decided to rob Alexandre Silberstein, a currency exchanger with an office in the Rue Vivenne. He arranged for an appointment to exchange francs into gold bars. While the dealer’s son was downstairs getting the gold, Jacques put a revolver to Mr. Silberstein’s head and demanded money from the register. When he tried to reason with him, Jacques hit him twice with the revolver, stunning him. Jacques then grabbed 300,000 francs and ran, trying to melt in with the crowd.

Mr. Silberstein soon recovered and began shouting that he had been robbed. Jacques fled into a building on Les Grandes Boulevards. A few minutes later, he emerged, attempting unsuccessfully to play the part of an innocent citizen. He ...

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...s and I feel sad, so sad… I will meditate on the agony of Our Lord in the Garden of Olives, but good Jesus, help me… Only five hours to live! In five hours, I shall see Jesus!”

On October 1, 1957, Jacques walked calmly to the guillotine. He asked a priest for the crucifix, which he kissed. His last words before the blade fell were, “Holy Virgin, have pity on me!”

The case for the beatification and canonization of Jacques Fesch is fiercely contested. “Where are we headed, if we start beatifying criminals?” asked one police officer chief. Others believe that Fesch’s beatification would “give a great hope to those who despise themselves, who see themselves as irredeemably lost”. Jacques Fesch is often likened to the Good Thief on Calvary. No one is ever truly lost in God’s eyes, even if they have done grave wrong and their whole society has condemned them.