Register Log In

Charles de Foucauld—Brother to All

Charles de Foucauld—Brother to All

The Vatican recently released the date of May 15, 2022, as the day on which Blessed Charles de Foucauld will be canonized. Pope Francis had announced the approval for the canonizations of Blessed Charles and six other men and women in April and May 2021. The pandemic caused the official canonization ceremonies to be delayed.

In his encyclical On Fraternity and Social Friendship (Fratelli Tutti), Pope Francis describes Blessed Charles de Foucauld as a “person of deep faith who, drawing upon his intense experience of God, made a journey of transformation towards feeling a brother to all.”

“Blessed Charles directed his ideal of total surrender to God towards an identification with the poor, abandoned in the depths of the African desert,” the Pope wrote. “In that setting, he expressed his desire to feel himself a brother to every human being, and asked a friend to ‘pray to God that I truly be the brother of all.’ He wanted to be, in the end, ‘the universal brother.’ Yet only by identifying with the least did he come at last to be the brother of all. May God inspire that dream in each one of us” (286–287).

Find a story from Visions about Saint Charles here (English, Spanish). His feast day is December 1, the day of his martyrdom.

P.S. Hugues de Foucauld, CEO of Bayard, Inc. in North America, is a family member of Saint Charles. We in the Bayard family are honored to be an extension of this connection!

Image credit: CIRIC International

Leave a Reply


Latest Posts


Sign-up for our free GROW blog newsletter

Our Editors


David Dziena
Publisher

David Dziena is the Publisher of Pflaum Publishing Group. He has also served as Executive Editor and […]

Joan McKamey
Project Editor

Joan McKamey, project editor, joined the Gospel Weeklies editorial team in September 2016. […]

Erika De Urquidi
Bilingual Editor

Erika De Urquidi, bilingual editor, joined Bayard, Inc. in July 2018. During her 15 years as a professional translator […]