GAUTRELET, FRANÇOIS-XAVIER. - Jesuit, b. 15 Feb. 1807 at Sampigny (Saône-et-Loire), d. 1 July 1886 at Montluçon. Spiritual director of the scholastics at Vals (1842–52), on the feast of St Francis Xavier in 1848 he launched the first Apostleship of Prayer (v.), developing the thesis, subsequently examined more deeply theologically by Fr Ramière, that the apostolate is exercised indeed by word and action, but even more by prayer and sacrifice. The idea was later disseminated by G. through the booklet L'apostolat de la prière and further given concrete form, with the approval of Fr Roothaan, in the association of the same name.
In 1852 he was appointed rector at Vals; in 1855, instructor of third probation at Fourvière; provincial of Lyon (1857–61); then he went to Algeria as superior general of the mission. In 1865 he was visitor and then superior of the mission in Syria; he prepared the way for the foundation of the University of Beyrout, and promoted the Catholic press through the Arabic edition of Holy Scripture and the newspaper Le Béchir. In 1869 he was recalled to Fourvière and, after serving as rector of the College of Lyon, assumed the direction of the Parisian journal Etudes (1876). G. left many ascetical pamphlets, among which the following went through many editions: Manuel de la dévotion au Sacré Cover (Paris 1850); Traité de l'état religieux (2 vols., Lyon 1847); Le prêtre à l'auné (ibid. 1874).