The life of Blessed Charles de Foucauld is one that resonates on multiple levels. For those who are wild in spirit, whose hearts are restless with a desire to travel the world and see foreign cultures, and for those engaged in the long, patient work of interreligious dialogue, he is a model to look to.
In early November, lovers of Blessed Charles received fantastic news when the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of the Saints announced they would be canonising him along with six other Blesseds on 15 May 2022.
Charles de Foucauld’s life is a unique one because he was quite the adventurer before rekindling his faith – and the adventure never died. Born in 1858 to a French aristocratic family, Charles was baptised as a baby and received the sacraments, but as he grew older he began to distance himself from the faith. He was orphaned at the age of six and raised by his maternal grandfather, Colonel Beaudet de Morlet. For a period of twelve years, he would later write, Charles remained suspended in a kind of nihilism, neither ‘denying or believing anything, despairing of the truth and not even believing in God.’ However, he retained his childhood love of the great Homeric epics, and his desire was always to live in an epic, adventurous fashion.
Following in his grandfather’s footsteps, he decided to enter Military College and emerged two years later as a Cavalry Officer. The thing is, he never did very well at the college. He graduated all of his classes at the very bottom and in one assessment was described as having an ‘insufficient sense of duty’ and ‘thinking only of enjoying himself’. He partied frequently, put on a lot of weight because he ate so much, and was a drunk and a womaniser.
In 1880, he was promptly dismissed from active service because he snuck his mistress into Algeria with his regiment. He was forced to return to France in disgrace. This was a horrible experience for Charles, not least because he found life in the garrison deeply boring. ‘I much prefer to take advantage of being young in order to travel,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘At least in that way I will be able to learn something and not waste my time.’
Not being able to travel was driving Charles insane. When a rebellion was stirred up in Algeria, he negotiated with his superiors to re-join the regiment down there, and he did. For eight months in South Oran, Algeria, he fought alongside his comrades. It was here that Charles actually fell in love with Africa.
Soon after, in 1882, he resigned himself from active service in the military and readied himself for his next adventure. For fifteen months he prepared himself to do something that had never properly been done before: explore and map out the regions of Morocco.
The cartographer and the rabbi
At that time, much of Morocco was forbidden to Europeans. In fact, Morocco held something of an allure for the European spirit, since it had always resisted French colonisation. The French had maps, of course, but they were nothing more than lines on a page. They were vague and hazy.
Because of this, there was something exotic about Morocco, something mysterious. Part of the allure was that Morocco consisted of a political, social and cultural world that was unlike anything Europeans had encountered before. Rather than being made up of conflicting nation-states, Morocco consisted of aggregate peoples united by the bonds of clan, culture, kinship and language.
Also, there was a certain excitement surrounding cartography. Cartographers were the adventurous ones, the explorers, the ones who travelled unknown and dangerous territory in the quest for knowledge. The world delighted in the publication of their travel journals (like Captain Cook’s, for example, in 1773 after his first voyage to Australia and New Zealand).
Prior to Charles’ travels, the Moroccans were frequently depicted as ‘primitives’, but Charles would put that image to rest once and for all with the publication of his journal in 1888. The Moroccan world was far more complex and interesting than they thought.
In much of Morocco, Europeans were generally considered to be spies. For this reason, the only way to get around was if you were disguised. So, disguise himself Charles did. With a Jewish man named Mordechai as a guide, Charles snuck into Morocco and for the next eleven months, with a compass, barometer and many notebooks, he would travel some 3,000 kilometres in one of the world’s unknown countries.
All the while he would pretend to be from anywhere but Europe, frequently posing as a Rabbi called Joseph Aleman, hailing from Moscow. This was exactly the kind of travelling he wanted to do. He disdained the idea of being a tourist:
It would be a shame to undertake such wonderful trips foolishly and like a simple tourist. I want to do them seriously, bringing along books in order to discover as thoroughly as possible both the ancient and modern history, though mostly the ancient history of all the countries through which I will be travelling.’
Throughout this exploration, people would suspect that Charles was actually a Christian (to be European and Christian was virtually synonymous in those days, even if someone did not personally believe anymore). Many times people tried to stone him when the truth was uncovered.
He returned from Morocco in 1884 and in 1888 the story of his exploration was published. He eventually settled in Paris where he felt ‘an interior grace’ compelling him to think more deeply about the Catholic faith. He found himself surrounded by friends who were Catholic and highly intelligent. There was one friend in particular, a woman, whose beauty and intelligence and Catholicism so impressed him that he became convinced that her faith ‘cannot be folly’. In response to these interior movements, Charles begged God to reveal himself.
His confessor recommended that he go to the Holy Land on pilgrimage. This pilgrimage changed the course of Charles’ life forever. There, especially in Nazareth, he found himself enchanted by the Gospel and the streets where Jesus walked.
For seven years after that Charles was a Trappist monk, but his desire to live in poverty, like Jesus did, was so great that he left the order and served the Order of Saint Clare in Nazareth for a few years before returning to France. There he was ordained a priest and in 1901 went on mission to Beni Abbès, a town bordering Morocco, to preach the Gospel to the Muslims – in particular the Tuareg people, a pastoralist and nomadic people inhabiting the region.
He would do this for more than ten years, often feeling like his time there was fruitless. When the First World War reached their part of the world, things came to an end for Charles. The Senussi Bedouin, Islamic enemies of France, invaded the Sahara, found Charles at his hermitage and shot him.
I cannot say that I desire death. In the past I had longed for it but now I see so much good that needs to be done, so many souls without a shepherd, that more than anything else, I would like to do a little good.’ (Blessed Charles de Foucauld)
A saint for interreligious dialogue
There are a couple of interesting things to note about the life of Blessed Charles de Foucauld. Firstly, the amount of time he spent amongst people who were not his own. He ministered for years in a foreign culture, forming friendships with many but often without seeing any reward for his labour. In fact, he even founded The Little Brothers of Jesus there, but in his lifetime he didn’t see a single brother join him. His life was a solitary one and, at first, his dream was unfulfilled.
A second thing to note is that he was responsible for the very first Tuareg-French dictionary and his works are foundational for an understanding of their culture. It is for this reason that he is considered a leading witness to interreligious dialogue. Despite the slog, he continued unabatingly to live in the desert in solitude, prayer and simplicity, doing his utmost to witness to Christ even when no fruit was immediately apparent.
