Last Updated on January 5, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Charles de Foucauld was a French priest and desert hermit in early 20th-century Algeria who had gay connections. He is one of 10 new saints canonized by Pope Francis on May 15, 2022. His feast day is Dec. 1. Sometimes called the saint of the Sahara, he created the first French/Targui dictionary.
(He is not the same as the better-known man with a similar name and story: Michel Foucault, the post-modern French gay philosopher, taught in Tunisia, helped inspire the development of queer theory, and died of AIDS in 1984.)
Charles de Foucauld (Sept. 15, 1858 – Dec. 1, 1916) was born and raised in France to an aristocratic family. Wikipedia says that in high school “he bonded with fellow student Gabriel Tourdes. Both students had a passion for classical literature, and Gabriel remained, according to Charles, one of the ‘two incomparable friends” of his life.’… During his readings with Gabriel Tourdes, he wanted to ‘completely enjoy that which is pleasant to the mind and body.’”
Foucauld joined the Trappist order in 1890, receiving the religious name Brother Marie-Albéric. He lived in monasteries in France and in Syria before his ordination as a priest in 1901. Wanting to live among “the furthest removed, the most abandoned,” he moved to live in poverty the Saharan desert of Algeria among the Tuareg people, a Berber ethnic group that adopted Islam. Foucault aimed at charity, not conversion, and did not make a single convert among the local people during his lifetime. He adopted the name Charles of Jesus and said that he wanted to “shout the Gospel with his life.”
However Foucauld is credited with assisting in the conversion from secularism of his close friend Louis Massignon, a French Catholic scholar of Islam who had at least one same-sex romance. Massignon became a pioneer of Catholic-Muslim mutual understanding and could be considered a queer saint in his own right. The love of his life was the Spanish aristocrat, Luis de Quadra, who “initiated him into the homosexual scene in Cairo,” according to “The ‘Catholic Muslim’: The Conversion of Louis Massignon” in Commonweal. His homosexual life is documented in many sources, including the biography “Louis Massignon: The Crucible of Compassion” by Mary Gude. Massignon translated the mystical homoerotic poetry of Sufi mystic Rumi.
Foucauld’s legacy: “Being present in love”
The official Vatican website says that Foucauld was murdered at age 58 on Dec. 1, 1916, by “a band of marauders who encircled his house.” The church considers him a martyr who was killed for his faith. There is usually more to the story behind the hagiographies. The Gay Mystic blog reports unsubstantiated rumors that “Foucauld’s death was caused in part as revenge for his practice of entertaining handsome young Tuareg men in his hermitage in the evenings…. This source did not affirm any improprieties.”
Both Foucauld and Massignon experienced God in a Muslim context. Massignon declined Foucauld’s invitation to join him in his life as a hermit, but he did become the executor of Foucauld’s spiritual legacy and oversaw publication of his “Directory” or Rules that led to the founding of the Little Brothers and Sister of Jesus. His writings are collected in “Charles de Foucauld (Modern Spiritual Masters),” published by Orbis.
Foucault’s best-known prayer is his “Prayer of Abandonment” that begins, “Father, I abandon myself into your hands…”
He summed up the theology that he lived when he wrote, “It is not necessary to teach others, to cure them or to improve them; it is only necessary to live among them, sharing the human condition and being present to them in love.”
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Related links:
Blessed Charles de Foucauld, Louis Massignon and the Gay connection (Gay Mystic blog)
Blessed Charles de Foucauld (Queering the Church)
Rumi: Poet and Sufi mystic inspired by same-sex love (Q Spirit)
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Top image credit:
Charles de Foucauld, circa 1907
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To read this article in Spanish, go to:
Charles de Foucauld: Santo del Sahara tenía conexiones homosexuales | Canonizado el 15 de mayo de 2022 por el Papa (cristianosgays.com)
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit on May 15, 2022 and most recently updated on Dec 17, 2022
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
So much written about Charles de Foucauld; his offspring nowhere mentioned, What do you really know?
I don’t know about the offspring of Charles de Foucauld, so please tell me.
He never had any children, that’s pure fantasy.
So the only “gay connection” here is the fact that one of his converts had once had a homosexual romance with someone else. So I guess I have “gay connections” too since I’ve had friendships with people who were gay or lesbian, but I don’t approve of the lifestyle and neither apparently did Charles de Foucauld despite the misleading headline which makes it sound like he was gay himself. .