MALOU, JEAN-BAPTISTE. – Belgian theologian and bishop, born in Ypres on 30 June 1809, died in Bruges on 23 March 1864. A student at the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics and the German College, he graduated magna cum laude from the Gregorian University (1835) and in 1837 became professor of dogmatic theology at the revived Catholic University of Louvain, where he distinguished himself through his method and erudition.
Works: La lecture de la Ste Bible en langue vulgaire (2 vols., Louvain 1846); Bibliotheci asceticus, in qua praestantissima SS. PP. opuscula exhibentur ad usum eleri (19 vols., ibid. 1847–50); Recherches historiques sur l'auteur de l'Imitation (Brussels 1848), which attributes the work to Thomas à Kempis. Elected bishop of Bruges in 1849, he combined zeal with tireless study, producing the works to which his fame as a theologian is linked: Du culte du St Sang de J.-C. (Bruges 1850); Iconographie de l'Immaculée Conception (Brussels 1856); La fausseté du protestantisme (ibid. 1857, translated into various languages); L'Immaculée Conception de la bienheureuse Vierge Marie, considérée comme dogme de foi (ibid. 1857, translated into Italian). This treatise is like one panel of that celebrated theological triptych (Perrone, Passaglia, M.), in which the privilege of Mary was elucidated with acuity, during the years that preceded and followed the definition (1854).