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French monk, Charles de Foucauld, is beatified

Wednesday, 16 November 2005

French monk, Charles de Foucauld, is beatified

Charles de Foucauld, a French monk, was among 3 people to be beatified at the Vatican in Rome on November 13th. De Foucauld, born on 15th September 1858 to a wealthy family in Strasbourg, France, lived among the Tuareg nomads of North African as a French soldier and returned there as a hermit and priest. He learnt Arabic and read the Koran and was inspired by the way Muslims took time to pray.

De Foucauld rediscovered his own beliefs in Christianity after a visit to the Holy Land in 1888-89. He wanted to lead a humble life, like Jesus in Nazareth, and decided he wanted to be poor after visiting a Trappist monastry, where he saw a monk wearing an old repaired habit. After later serving as a Trappist monk, he was ordained on 9th June 1901 and went to live in the Sahara among non-Christians. He made no attempt to convert the locals, preferring to bear witness to Christ through his deeds and respect for others. He lived as a missionary hermit for 15 years until he was killed in Algeria in 1916 in an anti-French uprising.

Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, prefect for the Congregation for Causes of Saints, presided at the mass on 13th November in St. Peter's Basilica, where Maria Pia Mastena and Maria Crocifissa Curcio were also beatified. He said that de Foucauld had devoted his life to prayer among the common people and "exercised an important influence on the spirituality of the 20th century". Pope Benedict XVI joined the congregation at the end of the mass and praised Foucauld for serving Christ "with humility and poverty".

Also present at the ceremony where about 5,000 pilgrims from France and a group of Tuareg nomads, the people among whom de Foucauld had lived.

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