Charles de Foucauld
Charles Eugène de Foucauld (Viscount of Foucauld, 15 September 1858 – 1 December 1916) was a cavalry officer in the French Army, then an explorer and geographer, and finally a Catholic priest and hermit who lived among the Tuareg in the Sahara in Algeria. He was assassinated in 1916 and is considered by the Church to be a martyr. His inspiration and writings led to the founding of the Little Brothers of Jesus among other religious congregations. Orphaned at the age of six, Charles de Foucauld was brought up by his maternal grandfather, Colonel Beaudet de Morlet. He  joined the Saint-Cyr Military Academy. Upon leaving the Academy he opted to join the cavalry. He thus went to the Saumur Cavalry School, where he was known for his childish sense of humour, whilst living a life of debauchery enabled by an inheritance he received after his grandfather's death. He was assigned to the 4th Chasseurs d'Afrique Regiment. At the age of twenty-three, he decided to resign in order to explore Morocco by impersonating a Jew. The quality of his works earned him a gold medal from the Société de Géographie, as well as fame following publication  of his book ""Reconnaissance au Maroc"" (1888). Once back in France, he rekindled his Catholic faith and joined the Cistercian Trappist order on 16 January 1890. Still with the Trappists, he then went to Syria. His quest of an even more radical ideal of poverty, altruism, and penitence, led him to leave the Trappists in order to become a hermit in 1897. He was then living in Palestine, writing his meditations that became the cornerstone of his spirituality. Ordained in Viviers in 1901, he decided to settle in the Algerian Sahara at Béni Abbès. His ambition was to form a  new congregation, but nobody joined him. He lived with the Berbers, adopting a new apostolic approach, preaching not through sermons, but through his example. In order to become more familiar with the Tuareg, he studied their culture for over twelve years, using a pseudonym to publish the first Tuareg–French dictionary. He collected hundreds of Tuareg poems (paying a few sous to anyone who would bring poems to his hermitage) which he translated into French. He censored nothing in the poems, and never changed anything that might not conform to Catholic morality. Charles de Foucauld's works are a reference  point for the understanding of Tuareg culture. On 1 December 1916, Charles de Foucauld was assassinated at his hermitage. He was quickly considered to be a martyr and was the object of veneration following the success of the biography written by René Bazin (1921). New religious congregations, spiritual families, and a renewal of eremitic life are inspired by Charles de Foucauld's life and writings. His beatification process started in 1927 eleven years after his death. He was declared Venerable on 24 April 2001 by Pope John Paul II, then Blessed on 13 November 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI. On  27 May 2020, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis would declare de Foucauld a saint on 15 May 2022. Biography. Childhood. De Foucauld's family was originally from the Périgord region of France and part of the old French nobility; their motto being "Jamais arrière".(Never behind) Several of his ancestors took part in the crusades, a source of prestige within the French nobility. His great-great-uncle, Armand de Foucauld de Pontbriand, a vicar and first cousin of the archbishop of Arles, Monseigneur Jean Marie du Lau d'Allemans, as well as the archbishop himself, were victims of the September massacres  that took place during the French Revolution. His mother, Élisabeth de Morlet, was from the Lorraine aristocracy whilst his grandfather had made a fortune during the revolution as a republican. Élisabeth de Morlet married the viscount Édouard de Foucauld de Pontbriand, a forest inspector, in 1885. On 17 July 1857, their first child Charles was born, and died one month later. Their second son, whom they named Charles Eugène, was born in Strasbourg on 15 September 1858, in the family house on Place Broglie at what was previously mayor Dietrich's mansion, where La Marseillaise was sung for the first  time, in 1792. The child was baptised at the Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune Church (though currently a Protestant church, both faiths coexisted there until 1898) on 4 November of the same year. A few months after his birth, his father was transferred to Wissembourg. In 1861, Charles was three and a half years old when his sister, Marie-Inès-Rodolphine, was born. His profoundly religious mother educated him in the Catholic faith, steeped in acts of devotion and piety. She died following misscarriage on 13 March 1864, followed by her husband who suffered from neurasthenia, on 9 August. The now  orphaned Charles (age 6) and his sister Marie (age 3) were put in the care of their paternal grandmother, viscountess Clothilde de Foucauld, who died of a heart attack shortly afterwards. The children were then taken in by their maternal grandparents, colonel Beaudet de Morlet and his wife, who lived in Strasbourg. The colonel Beaudet de Morlet, alumnus of the École Polytechnique and engineering officer, provided his grandchildren with a very affectionate upbringing. Charles shall write of him : ""My grandfather whose beautiful intelligence I admired, whose infinite tenderness surrounded my childhood and youth with an atmosphere of love, the warmth  of which I still feel emotionally"". Charles pursued his studies at the Saint-Arbogast episcopal school, and went to Strasbourg high school in 1868. At the time an introvert and short-tempered, he was often ill and pursued his education thanks to private tuition. He spent the summer of 1868 with his aunt, Inès Moitessier, who felt responsible for her nephew. Her daughter, Marie Moitessier (later Marie de Bondy), eight years older than Charles, became fast friends with him. She was a fervent church-goer who was very close to Charles, sometimes acting as a maternal figure for him. In  1870 the de Morlet family fled the Franco-Prussian War and found refuge in Bern. Following the French defeat, the family moved to Nancy in October 1871. Charles had four years of secular highschool left. Jules Duvaux was a teacher of his, and he bonded with fellow student Gabriel Tourdes. Both students had a passion for classical literature, and Gabriel remained, according to Charles, one of the ""two incomparable friends"" of his life. His education in a secular school developed nurtured patriotic sentiment, alongside a mistrust for the German Empire. His First Communion took place on 28 April 1872, and  his confirmation at the hands of Monseigneur Joseph-Alfred Foulon in Nancy followed shortly thereafter. In October 1873, whilst in a Rhetoric class, he began to distance himself from the faith before becoming agnostic. He later affirmed : ""The philosophers are all in discord. I spent twelve years not denying and believing nothing, despairing of the truth, not even believing in God. No proof to me seemed evident"." This loss of the faith was accompanied by uneasiness : Charles found himself to be ""all selfishness, all impiousness, all evil desire, I was as though distraught"." On 11 April 1874, his cousin Marie  married Olivier de Bondy. A few months later, on 12 August 1874, Charles obtained his baccalauréat with the distinction "mention bien" (equivalent to magna cum laude). A dissipated youth. Charles was sent to the Sainte-Geneviève school (now located in Versailles), run by the Jesuits, at that time located in the Latin Quarter of Paris, in order to prepare the admission test for the Saint-Cyr Military Academy. Charles was opposed to the strictness of the boarding school and decided to abandon all religious practice. He obtained his second baccalauréat in August 1875. He led a dissipated lifestyle at that  point in time and was expelled from the school for being "lazy and undisciplined" in March 1876. He then returned to Nancy, where he studied tutoring whilst secretly perusing light readings. During his readings with Gabriel Tourdes, he wanted to ""completely enjoy that which is pleasant to the mind and body"". This reading introduced the two students to the works of Aristotle, Voltaire, Erasmus, Rabelais and Laurence Sterne. In June 1876, he applied for entrance to the Saint-Cyr Military Academy, and was accepted eighty-second out of four hundred and twelve. He was one of the youngest in his  class. His record at Saint-Cyr was a mixed one and he graduated 333rd out of a class of 386. The death of Foucauld's grandfather and the receipt of a substantial inheritance, was followed by his entry into the French cavalry school at Saumur. Continuing to lead an extravagant life style, Foucauld was posted to the of Chasseurs d'Afrique in Algeria. Bored with garrison service he travelled in Morocco (1883–84), the Sahara (1885), and Palestine (1888–89). While reverting to being a wealthy young socialite when in Paris, Foucauld became an increasingly serious student of the geography and culture of  Algeria and Morocco. In 1885 the "Societe de Geographie de Paris" awarded him its gold medal in recognition of his exploration and research. Life as a clergyman, missionary and linguist. In 1890, de Foucauld joined the Cistercian Trappist order first in France at the Abbey of Notre-Dame des Neiges and then at La Trappe at Akbès on the Syrian-Turkish border. He left in 1897 to follow an undefined religious vocation in Nazareth. He began to lead a solitary life of prayer near a convent of Poor Clares and it was suggested to him that he be ordained. In  1901, he was ordained in Viviers, France, and returned to the Sahara in French Algeria and lived a virtually eremitical life. He first settled in Béni Abbès, near the Moroccan border, building a small hermitage for "adoration and hospitality", which he soon referred to as the "Fraternity". He moved to be with the Tuareg people, in Tamanghasset in southern Algeria. This region is the central part of the Sahara with the Ahaggar Mountains (the Hoggar) immediately to the west. Foucauld used the highest point in the region, the Assekrem, as a place of retreat. Living close to the Tuareg and  sharing their life and hardships, he made a ten-year study of their language and cultural traditions. He learned the Tuareg language and worked on a dictionary and grammar. His dictionary manuscript was published posthumously in four volumes and has become known among Berberologists for its rich and apt descriptions. He formulated the idea of founding a new religious institute, under the name of the Little Brothers of Jesus. Death. On 1 December 1916, de Foucauld was dragged from his fortress by a group of tribal raiders led by El Madani ag Soba, who was connected with the Senussi Bedouin . They intended to kidnap de Foucauld. However the tribesmen were interrupted by two Méharistes of the French Camel Corps. One startled bandit (15-year-old Sermi ag Thora) shot de Foucauld through the head, killing him instantly. The Méharistes were also shot dead. The murder was witnessed by sacristan and servant Paul Embarek, an African Arab former slave liberated and instructed by de Foucauld. The French authorities continued for years searching for the bandits involved. In 1943 El Madani fled French forces in Libya to the remote South Fezzan. Sermi ag Thora was apprehended and executed at Djanet in 1944 . Canonisation. De Foucauld was beatified by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins on 13 November 2005, on the behalf of Pope Benedict XVI and is listed as a martyr in the liturgy of the Catholic Church. On 27 May 2020, Pope Francis issued a decree during a meeting with the prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu which approved a miracle clearing the way for Charles de Foucauld to be canonised. On 4 March 2022, a papal consistory opened the way for the canonisation and set the date of the canonisation to 15 May 2022, together  with Titus Brandsma OCarm. Religious communities inspired by Charles de Foucauld. Charles de Foucauld inspired and helped to organize a confraternity within France in support of his ideas. This organisation, the Association of the Brothers and Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, consisted of 48 lay and ordained members at the time of his death. This group, notably Louis Massignon, the world-famous scholar of Islam, and René Bazin, author of a best-selling biography, "La Vie de Charles de Foucauld Explorateur en Maroc, Ermite du Sahara" (1921), kept his memory alive and inspired the family of lay and  religious fraternities. Though originally French in origin, these groups have expanded to include many cultures and their languages on all continents. Legacy. The 1936 French film "The Call of Silence" depicted his life. In 1950, the colonial Algerian government issued a postage stamp with his image. The French government did the same in 1959. In 1959 Dupuis published a comic book about the life of Charles de Foucauld, art and text by the Belgian comic artist Jijé (Joseph Gillain), who also made comic books about other Saints, like Bernadette Soubirous and Don Bosco. Antonello Padovano wrote and directed the film  The Four Doors of the Desert based on Charles de Foucauld life and his friendship with the Tuareg Amenokal Moussa Ag Amastan. Charles de Foucauld is remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration on 1 December.