Charles Eugène de 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.
His Catholic faith and joined the Cistercian Trappist order on 16 January 1890. Still, with the Trappists, he then went to Syria. His quest for 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, wrote 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. He wished 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. 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 renewal of eremitic life are inspired by Charles de Foucauld’s life and writings.
His beatification process started eleven years after his death, in 1927. It was interrupted during the Algerian War, resumed later, and 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 he would be canonized, while later on 9 November 2021 it was announced by the Vatican that Pope Francis would declare the late Trappist as a saint on 15 May 2022.