St. Charles de Foucauld

St. Charles de Foucauld (born 1858, Strasbourg, France—died December 1, 1916, Tamanrasset, Algeria; canonized May 15, 2022, feast day December 1) was a French soldier, explorer, and ascetic who dedicated his life to Christian study and prayer in the Sahara in the early 20th century. He was made a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in 2022.

Foucauld came from an aristocratic family in Strasbourg, France. He was orphaned at age six, and he and his sister were subsequently raised by their grandfather. By the time he was a teenager, he had rejected his Christian faith. Foucauld first visited North Africa in 1881 as an officer in the French army participating in the suppression of an Algerian insurrection. He led an important exploration of Morocco in 1883–84 and, at a later time, studied the oases of southern Algeria.

When he was 28 years old, he reclaimed his faith and made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 1890 he became a Trappist monk but soon left that order to become a solitary ascetic in Palestine. In 1901 he became a missionary priest, establishing himself initially in southern Algeria and then at Tamanrasset in the Ahaggar (Hoggar) Mountains of the Sahara. One of the first Frenchmen to enter the area after its conquest, Foucauld built a rough stone hermitage for himself on the peak of Mount Assekrem and lived there among the native Tuareg, whom he encouraged to be loyal to the French government, and compiled a dictionary of their language. In 1916 Foucauld was killed by local rebels during an uprising against France.

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Exploration and Discovery

Foucauld’s example of holiness inspired the founding of several lay fraternities, religious communities, and secular institutes in many countries. He was beatified in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI, and in 2022 he was canonized by Pope Francis.