Joseph Victor EDWIN, SJ, editor. Brother to All: The Life and Witness of St. Charles de Foucault. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2022. x + 118 pages, pbk, $20.00. ISBN 978-1-62698-484-4‎. Reviewed by Thomas SIMMONS, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota 57069.

Charles Eugène de Foucauld de Pontbriand – French viscount and later, desert hermit – was praised in Pope Francis’s Fratelli tutti for exemplifying “fraternity and social friendship.” In May of 2022, the desert hermit was canonized. This volume’s eleven brief essays study his life, his legacy, and his connections to others such as Thomas Merton, Saint Francis, Saint Augustine, and Louis Massignon.

Foucauld – like Francis of Assisi – began his life as a soldier, and not a particularly good one. Then Foucauld became an undercover explorer of Morocco (masquerading as a wandering Jewish rabbi), then a Trappist, a priest, and finally, a hermit in remote Tamanrasset, Algeria, where he was martyred in 1916.
Perhaps Foucauld’s primary legacy is how little of a material impact he made during his lifetime. A total of zero joined his hermitage. He gained no converts. He died in a ditch. What he did accomplish was a solitary life lived authentically. (He also produced a French-Taureg dictionary.) “[H]e led a simple life among the poor, he prayed and worked (ora et labora – the Trappist and Benedictine creed), and most importantly, he lived in harmony with his Muslim neighbors” (110).

Rather than modeling a life based on Christ-as-preacher/evangelist, Foucauld imitated Christ’s years in Nazareth. He mastered the art of friendship and embraced poverty. “You must be simple, affable and kind” (78) Foucauld would insist. He conducted himself as an ascetic, not by insistently proclaiming the Gospel, but by living it. (Saint Francis concurred that “we should preach the Gospel at all times – and use words ‘when necessary’” (88).)

The book reveals a surprisingly inspirational life of efforts that might be characterized as a failure. Few would label Foucauld’s efforts a “success.” But Christ’s ministry did not appear to end in “success” either, but with the cross. The book also reveals some of the complexity of Foucault, such as his aggressively anti-German stance during World War One, his critiques of Islam, and his participation in French colonialism. As such, it merits study and close reading for those wishing to learn more about Saint Charles de Foucauld.