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1 the Life and Thought of Charles De Foucauld: a Christian Eremitical Vocation to Islam and His Contribution to the Understandin

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1 the Life and Thought of Charles De Foucauld: a Christian Eremitical Vocation to Islam and His Contribution to the Understandin The Life and Thought of Charles de Foucauld: A Christian Eremitical Vocation to Islam and His Contribution to the Understanding of Muslim-Christian Relations within the Catholic Tradition Ariana Joyce Patey Heythrop College PhD Theology 1 Abstract Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) was a Catholic hermit who lived and died in French Algeria. On the frontlines of Muslim-Christian relations in North Africa, first as a soldier and then as a priest and hermit, he represents a significant figure in our understanding of the history of relations between Islam and the Catholic Church in the twentieth century. Foucauld had a calling to be a witness for Jesus Christ to the Muslim people of North Africa. He was able to articulate this private mission and his formal vocation to monastic life by retrieving the eremitical tradition of the Catholic Church. Shaped by the anti-clerical culture of the Third Republic, as a young man Foucauld was an avowed atheist. His interaction with the Muslims of North Africa was transformative. After his conversion to Catholicism, these experiences allowed him to understand the Incarnation as an inclusive gift that made all men brothers in God’s family. His awareness of this mystery and his understanding of abjection and poverty, led him to see in the life of the Muslims of North Africa the “last place” of Jesus. Foucauld was called to orient his life towards them, to continually convert by seeing Jesus in the face of Muslims. Foucauld’s extreme ascetic devotions, including his desire to become “hidden” amongst the poor, were given spiritual meaning by his understanding of the eremitic tradition. His imitation of Christ called him to “sanctify souls” by carrying Jesus to the Other. These two apparently contradictory impulses – to hide himself, yet to carry Christ to others – formed the essence of the tension in Foucauld’s vocational life. Yet eremiticitsm was not a hindrance to his mission but facilitated it. Through eremiticism’s ability to both create the space for, and initiate cultural formation, Foucauld was able to interact with the Muslims of the region and to oppose the dominant French culture. Foucauld’s legacy to Muslim-Christian relations was given theological expression in the work of his disciple, Louis Massignon. Massignon’s life and thought expressed the eremitic versatility of Foucauld’s spirituality. Foucauld’s ecclesial legacy is embodied in his diverse spiritual family and those, such as Thomas Merton, who were inspired by him. This legacy has been at the forefront of the Church’s renewal in the twentieth century. Considering the life, vocation, and legacy of Charles de Foucauld, this thesis seeks to reconcile his mission and his eremiticism. Far from invalidating his eremitic spirituality, Foucauld’s relationship with the Muslims, is the rich fulfilment of a life of solitude with God. Foucauld’s modern application of eremitic principles reveals the depth and versatility of this living tradition. 2 3 Table of Contents Title Page 1 Abstract 2 Declarations 3 Introduction 5 Section One: Life Chapter One: France and Identity 11 Chapter Two: Islam and Identity 44 Chapter Three: Continual Conversion 82 Section Two: Vocation Chapter Four: Asceticism and Eremiticism 139 Chapter Five: Hermit and Community 170 Chapter Six: Eremiticism and Culture 208 Section Three: Legacy Chapter Seven: A Theological Legacy: Louis Massignon 239 Chapter Eight: An Ecclesial Legacy 278 Conclusion 316 Bibliography 320 4 Introduction Charles de Foucauld was born in Strasbourg, France in 1858. Orphaned at six years of age, he and his younger sister were raised by their grandfather. Foucauld1 went on to become an officer in the French army, and it was in this capacity that he was sent to Algeria in 1881. Having lost his faith in his teens he was in continuous trouble both at school and in the army. On a military expedition in southern Algeria he finally proved himself to his peers and, although he left the army, went on to achieve distinction through his exploration of Morocco in 1883-4.2 Moved by his experiences he began to question his lack of faith and at the age of twenty-eight converted to the Catholic Church. From his conversion until 1910, Foucauld was guided by the spiritual direction of abbé Henri Huvelin (1838-1910),3 the respected priest of Église Saint- Augustine, who influenced men such as Maurice Blondel, Fredrich von Hugel and Émile Littré.4 Confirmed in a desire to imitate Jesus in the “last place”,5 after a 1 For the purposes of this thesis, when I refer to Charles de Foucauld by his last name I will drop the aristocratic particle ‘de’. Foucauld dropped the particle himself for the majority of his life, for many years he did not use his family name at all, but was instead addressed as “Father” or “Brother”. For a full discussion of the variety of sobriquets Foucauld assumed during his life see Philip Hillyer, Charles de Foucauld (Collegeville: 1990), 142-144. 2 Charles de Foucauld, Reconnaissance au Maroc (1883-1884) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998). 3 Charles de Foucauld, Père de Foucauld, abbé Huvelin: correspondance inédite, ed. Jean François Six (Tournai: Desclée, 1957). 4 Lucienne Portier, Un précurseur: l’abbé Huvelin, Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1979. 5 “You gave me too those words in a sermon of Father Huvelin’s which are now so indelibly engraved on my soul: ‘May you so truly have taken the lowest place, that no one will ever be able to take it from you’”, Charles de Foucauld, The Spiritual 5 pilgrimage to the Palestine and the holy sites, Foucauld joined the Trappist Order.6 After seven years at their house in Syria, Foucauld left the order and attached himself to the Poor Clares in Nazareth as a workman and a hermit. Under the guidance of Huvelin and the Mother Superior of the Poor Clares7 he was persuaded to join the priesthood. In 1901 he returned to North Africa “to sanctify the infidel populations by bringing into their midst Jesus present in the most Blessed Sacrament”.8 He established a fraternity, “zawiya”,9 at Béni Abbès where he offered hospitality and charity to the local Muslims and Jews, and to the French soldiers in the nearby garrison. In 1905 he established a second fraternity at Tamanrasset in southern Algeria, where he dedicated his life to fostering a friendship with the nomadic Tuareg; to this end he compiled a dictionary of the local language and a collection of poetry.10 On December 1, 1916 Foucauld was shot by bandits and killed at the age of Autobiography of Charles de Foucauld, ed. Jean François Six, trans. J. Holland Smith (Ijamsville, Maryland: The Word Among Us Press, 2003), 17. 6 David N. Bell, Understanding Rancé: The Spirituality of the Abbot of La Trappe in Context (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 2005); A. J. Krailsheimer, Rancé and the Trappist Legacy (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1985). 7 R.P. Chaleur, Charles de Foucauld et Mère Saint Michel (Paris: Ed. St. Paul, 1946). 8 Letter of Foucauld to Mgr. Bazin, 22 August 1901. Quoted in René Bazin, Charles de Foucauld: Hermit and African Explorer, 2nd Edition, trans. Peter Keelan (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, Ltd., 1943), 145. 9 Ian Latham, “Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916): Silent witness for Jesus ‘in the face of Islam,” in Catholics in Interreligious Dialogue: Studies in Monasticism, Theology and Spirituality, eds. Anthony O’Mahony and Peter Bowe (Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2006), 47-70, 53. 10 Charles de Foucauld, Dictionnaire touareg-française: dialecte de l’Ahaggar (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France, 1951); idem, Textes touaregs en prose (Algiers: Basset, 1922). 6 fifty-eight.11 As we approach the hundredth anniversary of his death, it is apropos to reinvestigate the example in life and legacy that Foucauld has left to the Church. The last decade has provided a new hermeneutic to evaluate Foucauld. In his relationship with the Muslims of North Africa Foucauld was a pioneer of Christian- Muslim relations in the twentieth century. While the nature of Foucauld’s relationship with non-Christians has not been without critique and criticism,12 his commitment to brotherhood and equality,13 unique “inculturation”,14 and interfaith prayer15 provides us with a picture of someone passionate about investigating the parameters of interfaith connections. Foucauld was not a theologian and his understanding and engagement with Islam as a religious tradition was cursory and unimaginative, but he was a man who learned by experience. His opinions about an appropriate Christian response to Muslims have had considerable impact on Christian-Muslim relations. In the twenty-first century, the example of Foucauld’s response to the Muslims with whom he lived has a new resonance. His “universal brotherhood” and call to love, which he lived out amongst Muslims, was highlighted 11 Antoine Chatelard, La mort de Charles de Foucauld (Paris: Karthala, 2000). 12 Ali Merad, Christian Hermit in an Islamic World, trans. Zoe Hersov (New York: Paulist Press, 1999); Jean-Marie Muller, Charles de Foucauld, frère universel ou moine-soldat? (Paris: La Découverte, 2002); For an overview of the early debates surrounding this topic, see Jacques Keryell, “Louis Massignon et l’Association Charles de Foucauld,” in Louis Massignon au coeur de notre temps, ed. Jacques Keryell (Paris: Karthala, 1999), 173-193. 13 Latham, “Silent Witness,” 54-55. 14 Ibid, 54. 15 Bazin, 282. 7 in Benedict XVI’s beatification message16 in 2005, four years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the start of the “war on terror”. Foucauld’s beatification has also brought to the fore questions about his vocation.17 During his life Foucauld worked, unsuccessfully, to establish three monastic congregations and dedicated the last years of his life to the establishment of a confraternity for clergy, religious, and lay people.18 His death, without an established congregation or association to codify his legacy, created a vacuum in which different legacies were able to flourish.
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