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Charles De Foucauld, Who Took Islam’s Measure, To Be Canonized (Part 1)

Jun 7, 2020 10:00 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

This does not signify a change in Pope Francis’s own views of Islam. It only means that Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), a French priest who lived among Muslims in Morocco and Algeria , where by his own example he hoped to promote their conversion to Christianity, has been willfully misunderstood by the Vatican, for de Foucauld was no admirer of Islam. If he were alive today in France he would be supporting Marine Le Pen.

The story is at the Church Militant:

Pope Francis is to canonize a French priest who warned of the resurgence of Islamic imperialism and the impossibility of integrating Muslims into French society unless the Church converted Muslims to Christianity.

Pope Francis apparently is unaware of Charles de Foucauld’s views on Muslims and Islam. They were nothing like what Pope Francis believes; de Foucauld took a very dim view of Islam, and regarded Muslims as a threat to the French whom they hoped one day to “subdue.”

If he did not express these views openly, that was because he was in North Africa living with Muslims. He did not proselytize, believing that he had to slowly win the trust of Muslims, to prepare the mental ground for others who would come after him and convert them. De Foucauld’s real views can be found in his Letters.

“In general, with some exceptions, as long as they are Muslim, they will not be French, they will wait more or less patiently for the day of the Mahdi [Islamic messiah], in which they will subdue France,” Blessed Charles de Foucauld warned in his 1916 letter to René Bazin, his future biographer.

“If, little by little, slowly, the Muslims of our colonial empire in northern Africa do not convert, there will be a nationalist movement similar to that of Turkey,” de Foucauld predicted, explaining that the Muslim “intellectual elite” will have “lost all Islamic faith” but will use Islam to “influence the masses,” and ordinary Muslims will remain “firmly Mohammedan, brought to hatred and contempt for the French by their religion.”

“In sentiments that would now be outlawed as Islamophobic, de Foucauld prophesied an Islamic political threat to Christian civilization, warning of the dangers of Muslims left untouched by the love of Christ,” a French-speaking member of the Little Brothers of Jesus, a religious society inspired by de Foucauld, told Church Militant.

“The task of whether or not to treat de Foucauld as an Islamophile or an Islamophobe will define whether or not European culture succumbs to Islam or converts it,” the Normandy-based Catholic theologian observed. 

However, shortly after the Vatican cleared de Foucauld’s canonization on May 27, Fr. Andrea Mandonico told Vatican News that the martyr should be hailed as a “prophet of interreligious dialogue between Christianity and Islam.”

Professor Mandonico teaches a course on Charles de Foucauld at the Gregorian University, which aims “to show how a fraternity between Christianity and Islam is possible … in the dialogue that does not impose itself, that does not ask for conversion, a dialogue in ‘universal brotherhood’ as … stated in the recent document on Human Fraternity,” signed between Pope Francis and Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayyeb in Abu Dhabi Feb. 2019.

Charles de Foucauld was not engaged – despite Professor Mandonico’s claim – in “interreligious dialogue.” He did not believe it possible for there to be any true dialogue with Islam, so militantly hostile to Christianity. He was attempting to win by his self-effacing behavior the trust of individual Muslims, to reduce their Qur’an-inculcated hostility, and to prepare Muslim minds for conversion to Islam, which he knew would take time. He talked with the Muslims – Arabs and Tuaregs — among whom he lived, he offered himself as an unthreatening example of a devout Christian cleric, but that did not constitute “interreligious dialogue.”

La Croix praised the former cavalry officer as “a great figure of interreligious dialogue.” In an interview, Sr. Odette, a member of the Little Sisters of Jesus based in Paris, said: “At a time when there is so much talk of interreligious dialogue, he is a great figure of that dialogue through his apostolate of prayer, silence and friendship with his Muslim brothers and sisters.”

Another enthusiast, a Sister Odette, is apparent unaware of how De Foucauld saw his mission. He was not “a great figure…of interreligious dialogue” at all; he offered his own charitable and ascetic self, rather, as a way to win over Muslim hearts to recognize that not all Christians were the enemy. He could offer “friendship” to Muslims, but not renunciation of his own very clear Christian beliefs, which he did not dwell on, as they were regarded by Muslims with horror and hostility.

Writing in The Tablet, Christopher Lamb described the missionary to the Tuareg population of the Ahaggar region as a “model of dialogue and charity” who “showcased a ministry of presence.'”

“It is an evangelization method which is the opposite of proselytizing. Living in a Muslim country he did not seek to preach, or perform great acts of bravado but to live at the foot of the cross,” writes Lamb.

Christopher Lamb recognizes that De Foucauld’s intent was to “evangelize” in the most modest of ways, by offering himself as an example of a believing Christian, who never openly proselytized, and who proceeded very gradually to win Muslim affections. “Living in a Muslim country he did not seek to preach” — that was because that could cause him to be murdered. “Great acts of bravado” similarly refers to any too-obvious attempt, besides preaching, to win Muslim minds and hearts for Christianity; that too could have led to his death.

In The Tablet the liberal Catholic Christopher Lamb comments: “At a time when political strategists, and some inside the Church, wish to present a ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and Christianity and call for the ‘Judeo-Christian’ west to be defended, de Foucauld offers another way.”

Lamb misconstrues De Foucauld’s views. The fact that he did not proselytize but sought another means to open Muslim hearts to Christ, does not mean he had a favorable view of Islam. In his letters, Charles de Foucauld was very clear about that “clash of civilizations” which Lamb claims he did not believe in. He saw the political threat of Islam to the Christian West. He understood the deep-seated immutable hostility of Muslims toward Christians, that he had learned about from living with Muslims themselves. He predicted the clash of civilizations in his letters, explaining that in the future the Muslim “intellectual elite” will have “lost all Islamic faith” but will still use Islam to “influence the masses,” and ordinary Muslims will remain “firmly Mohammedan, brought to hatred and contempt for the French by their religion.” De Foucauld prophesied “an Islamic political threat to Christian civilization, warning of the dangers of Muslims left untouched by the love of Christ.”

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Filed Under: Catholic Church, dialogue, Featured, Hugh Fitzgerald, Useful idiots, willful ignorance Tagged With: Charles de Foucauld


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Comments

  1. Seth says

    Jun 7, 2020 at 10:33 am

    ‘…to prepare Muslim minds for conversion to Islam…’

    surely a typo.

    • gravenimage says

      Jun 8, 2020 at 10:25 pm

      Yes, that was a typo, Seth.

  2. sixlittlerabbits says

    Jun 7, 2020 at 11:42 am

    A very interesting book was written about Foucauld and his cooperation with General Henry Laperrine in the Sahara. Foucauld went on to lead an extremely penitential and saintly life after years of debauchery. He had served in the miltary and even as a religious, he helped the French deal with Muslim insanity. LOL at the inaccurate image fabricated by the Vatican as his canonization approaches. I believe he should be canonized (as should Fulton J. Sheen, whose canonization was sabotaged and has not occurred).

    • sixlittlerabbits says

      Jun 7, 2020 at 11:45 am

      The book I recommend above is “The Sword and the Cross,” by Fergus Fleming (2003).

  3. CogitoErgoSum says

    Jun 7, 2020 at 12:02 pm

    It’s bizarre to think that Muslims want a dialogue with Christians, whom the Muslims consider to be Infidels and vile creatures. Muslims listen to the words of their god Allah and not to any Pope or other Christian, even a Christian saint. For the Muslim Allah is the one who speaks and the Christian is to listen. Allah says renounce Christianity because it is a corrupt and displeasing practice and accept Islam. If you do not accept Islam you are to humble yourselves before those who are Muslims and pay them the Jizya in silent submission. Understand that you Christians are to live your lives in SILENCE before Muslims. Christians who think there can be a dialogue with Muslims are only fooling themselves.

    Again, I recommend the 2016 movie by Martin Scorsese called “Silence” which deals with Christian persecution in 17th century Japan, and although the persecution is not done by Muslims the end goal is the same. At first I thought the movie’s title referred to the silence of God but I now think it refers to the silence that the world wants to impose upon Christianity.

  4. Ferd III says

    Jun 7, 2020 at 1:11 pm

    De Foucauld is 10 x the man that Pope Stupidus I will ever be.

    He lived with the Muhammadans unlike Frank, knew their barbarian ways unlike Frank, understood their totalitarian manichean creed unlike Frank, and had enough common sense to know that the cult of Muhammad and his moon worshippers would never tolerate nor countenance either Christ nor French civilisation.

    A Seer and a Saint.

    • Jenny H says

      Jun 8, 2020 at 10:43 pm

      I totally agree.

  5. Barbara says

    Jun 7, 2020 at 5:54 pm

    The priest understand better the Muslim mind set than anyone today.

  6. Lavéritétriomphera says

    Jun 8, 2020 at 1:51 pm

    “thats how much inhuman missionary mafias have been. promoting ethnic conflicts to this day just like muslims.“
    What evidence do you have of this?

    • gravenimage says

      Jun 8, 2020 at 10:40 pm

      Was that a reply to the appalling Shastra? He has said before that Christian missionaries are mass slaughtering Hindus. Just grotesque calumny.

      • Lavéritétriomphera says

        Jun 9, 2020 at 3:03 am

        That is the issue, because it’s essential to provide incriminating evidences before launching a public accusation.

        • Lavéritétriomphera says

          Jun 9, 2020 at 10:50 am

          @Shastra,

          Salutation
          Thank for the links, but you cannot compare Islam to Christianity. You just have to look to the Bible to realize that enforced conversions and murder of non believers are not written in the Christian holy scriptures. These so called “Christians” do not live by the precepts of the gospels https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+6%3A27-36&version=NIV contrary to the Islamists who follow rigorously the Quran.
          Like Mother Theresa Charles de Foucault was a Christian that promoted non-violence.
          Hindus who, in principle believed in samsara and karma dharma, murdered Muslims at the time of the indépendance of India.
          So far as I know Karma is also taught in the gospels https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-26.htm.
          Reincarnation exists in the Kabbalah and existed probably in the early Christianity.
          My Gaulish ancestors believed in reincarnation.
          Bien à vous

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