CHARLES CARDINAL LAVIGERIE,

FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF MISSIONARIES OF AFRICA.

Intelligent – rude – diplomatic - attentive – busy – kneeling – relentless – upright – in office – suffering – solemn – fearing death – listening - ready for action – exigent – indulgent – fighter – Historian - poor – respectful… everything to make of him a passionate man for God and for men, a really passionate man: CHARLES LAVIGERIE (1825-1892). Cardinal – Archbishop of Algiers, Founder of the Missionaries of Africa – White Fathers and White Sisters.

Born in 1825 in Bayonne; priest at the age of 24 years; the first man ever to obtain a doctorate in literature from the school of the Carmelites; lecturing at the university of Sorbonne for ten years of his life, Director of the Work of the Orient, Auditor of the Rote, Bishop of Nancy at the age of 38; Archbishop of Algiers at 42; Cardinal; dead in 1892.

How did the Lord prepare Lavigerie to make Jesus Christ known in Africa.

Charles was born in Bayonne to a well – to – do family, a family adhering much more to the philosophy of Voltaire than to Christianity. His Father was ambitious and enterprising. His mother was both a cultivated and sensitive woman. Two housemaids initiate him to prayer.

Besides of him being less attracted to the discipline of seminary life, Lavigerie is ordained priest in 1849. The first man ever to obtain a doctorate of Literature from the school of Carmelites, he becomes professor of History at the university of Sorbonne. Though he was sometimes bored, his formation prepares him for the future missionary endeavour.

In 1861, “Auditor to the tribunal of the Holy See in Rome”, he makes some relations, regretting the fact that not all the nations were represented in Rome to symbolise the universal character of the Catholic Church.

At the age of 38, he becomes in Nancy, the youngest bishop of France. His coat of arms is “CHARITAS”: charity will be his life program. He had two preoccupations: the intellectual formation of priests and religious women, material life of the ageing and poor priests.

Becoming the Director of the Work of schools of the Orient, he travels to Lebanon and Syria where Christians were massacred by the Druze; he sees a view of his missionary vocation.

He is 41 years old when he is appointed Archbishop of Algiers. He has terrible apostolic ambitions. A much more promising post was proposed to him: Coadjutor Bishop of Lyons. His answer to this proposition was: “It will be nice to live in Lyons, but it will be less difficult to die in Algiers and especially, if there is, as I am assured, much to suffer. Famine was reigning there.

Algiers was “a gateway to a continent of 200 million inhabitants”. Lavigerie becomes Apostolic Delegate to Sahara and French Sudan.

From 1868 he starts forming missionaries whom he will send in groups of three “becoming all things to all men, for everything compatible with Christian faith and morality”

The first caravan sent to French Sudan is massacred in the Sahara in 1876. So will the second caravan in 1881. Lavigerie wrote a long letter full of affection to console the bereaved parents of the dead missionaries. In his life he will not see missionaries arriving in Sudan.

In 1877, the government of France proposes him the patronage of Saint Anne’s shrine of Jerusalem “the place where Mary was born.” Lavigerie entrusts to the White Fathers a presence of prayer for their Society and also the formation of the Greek Melchite clergy “all in the respect of their tradition and especially without latinising them.”

The White Fathers are in Uganda since 10 years. A report arrive: some youths have witnessed of Christ up to accepting the terrible death by axe or fire! The encounter of pain and joy: the blood of Christians, seed of Christian faith.

Having met difficulties in the West, Lavigerie sends his missionaries to East Africa, giving them precise instructions based on the experience of the Church and the explorers. Climate, tiredness, sicknesses will be the origin of premature death for many.

Pope Leo XIII asks the Cardinal to make a campaign against slavery. Very soon he covers all great European cities defending diligently the cause of human dignity.

The same Pope asks him to rally the French Catholics to the established institutions of the Republic. Knowing that this commitment will probably destroy the works he has founded, Lavigerie all the same obeys: it is the toast of Algiers. Exhausted, he dies in 1892. He is only 67 years old! His missionaries, Fathers, Brothers, Sisters, his sons and daughters continue.

Lavigerie: My final recommendation, that without which all the others will be futile, is the recommendation of the old apostle of Ephesus. “Love one another. Be ever united in heart and mind. Make a truly one family… Be not only united, but one.

Text extracted from the review: the missionaries of Africa of the cardinal Lavigerie, ‘Living tradition’ pp. 7-8