"[3] However, in the early 1950s, the worker-priest movement fell out of favor with the Vatican due to their role in left-wing politics and perceived abandonment of the traditional priesthood.
[4] In 1950, Pius XII, in an apostolic exhortation on the priestly life, expressed "reservations and suspicions of the worker-priests …"[5] Loew's May 1951 report defending the movement, written to Giovanni Montini (the future Pope Paul VI), then the assistant Cardinal Secretary of State, ultimately failed to convince the pope and the movement was forced to shut down in 1954.
[2] In 1954, Loew acquiesced to the Vatican and quit his job; he then established the Saints Peter and Paul Mission to Workers, which trained priests from among the working class.
[2] Loew then travelled to Africa, then worked in the favelas of São Paulo, Brazil from 1964 to 1969, and then established the School of Faith in Fribourg, Switzerland.
These had been shared with many others including the Bishops by means of letters, newsletters, books and meetings and the then Papal Nuncio to France, Archbishop Angelo Roncalli.
[citation needed] During that Council, the French and Belgian Bishops in particular were very influential in shaping its direction towards renewal and engagement with the modern world.
On the advice of his mentor Cardinal Sapieha, Karol Wojtyla (future Pope John Paul II) and a fellow Polish priest studying in Italy, Stanislaw Starowieyski, travelled to France and Belgium to acquaint themselves with the worker-priest movement.