VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis canonized ten Blesseds on Sunday, including Frenchman Charles de Foucauld, a soldier, explorer and then religious in Algeria, where he died in 1916.
Two other Frenchmen, Marie Rivier and Csar de Bus, were also declared saints by the sovereign pontiff during a famous mass in Saint-Pierre square.
Among the other blessed canonized was Titus Brandsma, a Dutch journalist and religious of the Carmelite order, who died in deportation in 1942.
This ceremony brought together more than 50,000 faithful and officials, including the French Minister of the Interior, Grald Darmanin, who came to compensate for the absence of Prime Minister Jean Castex who remained in Paris due to Emmanuel Macron’s trip to the United Arab Emirates.
Built in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI, Charles de Foucauld was successively a soldier, explorer and geographer before entering the priesthood and living part of his life among the Tuargue populations of North Africa and being killed. in 1916 under unclear circumstances.
(Report Philip Pullella, French version Nicolas Delame)