byHannah Brockhaus Catholic News Agency
Pope Benedict XVI greets the congregation following the beatification Mass for French missionary Charles de Foucauld at the Vatican Nov. 13, 2005. Blessed Foucauld is depicted in the tapestry hanging above. The French monk spent 15 years of his life in Saharan Algeria, living among the nomadic Tuaregs until his assassination by marauders in 1916. CNS photo from Reuters
Vatican City (CNA) -- The Vatican announced April 26 that Pope Francis will hold an Ordinary Public Consistory May 3, the last step before the canonizations of seven men and women, including Blessed Charles de Foucauld, can take place.
At the consistory, cardinals will vote to approve the canonizations of seven beatified men and women. This vote is the last step in the canonization process and allows a date to be set for a Mass of canonization.
Only cardinals resident or present in Rome will take part in the consistory, which will be held in the consistory hall in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.
The canonizations will be the first since the start of the worldwide COVID-19 emergency. The last canonization Mass took place on Oct. 13, 2019, when the Anglican convert, theologian, and philosopher St. John Henry Newman was canonized in the presence of tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square.
Pope Francis approved the canonization cause of Blessed Charles de Foucauld in May 2020. The French missionary, also known as Brother Charles of Jesus, was killed in Algeria in 1916.
De Foucauld was a soldier, explorer, Catholic revert, priest, hermit, and religious brother, who served among the Tuareg people in the Sahara desert in Algeria.
He was assassinated by a band of men at his hermitage in the Sahara on Dec. 1, 1916.
De Foucauld was born in Strasbourg in 1858. He was raised by his wealthy and aristocratic grandfather after being orphaned at the age of six.
He joined the French military, following in the footsteps of his grandfather. Having already lost his faith, as a young man he lived a life of indulgence and was known to have an immature sense of humor.
De Foucauld resigned from the military at age 23, and set off on a dangerous exploration of Morocco. Contact with strong Muslim believers there challenged him, and he began to repeat to himself: "My God, if you exist, let me come to know you."
He returned to France and, with the guidance of a priest, came back to his Catholic faith in 1886, at the age of 28.
The following saying is attributed to him: "As soon as I believed in God, I understood that I could not do otherwise than to live for him alone."
De Foucauld realized a vocation to "follow Jesus in his life at Nazareth" during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He was a Trappist monk in France and Syria for seven years. He also lived as a hermit for a period near a convent of Poor Clares in Nazareth.
He was ordained a priest in 1901 at age 43 and left for northern Africa to serve among the Tuareg people, a nomadic ethnic group, saying he wanted to live among "the furthest removed, the most abandoned."
In the Sahara he welcomed anyone who passed by, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or pagan.
He was deeply respectful of the faiths and cultures he lived among. During his 13 years in the Saraha he learned about Tuareg culture and language, compiling a Tuareg-French dictionary, and being a "brother" to the people.
The priest said he wanted to "shout the Gospel with his life" and to conduct his life so that people would ask, "if such is the servant, what must the Master be like?"
De Foucauld was the inspiration for the founding of several lay associations, religious communities, and secular institutes of laity and priests, known collectively as "the spiritual family of Charles de Foucauld."
At his beatification in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI said as a priest, de Foucauld "put the Eucharist and the Gospel at the center of his life."
"He discovered that Jesus -- who came to unite Himself to us in our humanity -- invites us to that universal brotherhood which he later experienced in the Sahara, and to that love of which Christ set us the example," he said.