When Blessed Charles de Foucauld saved a young roofer named Charle

Charles de Foucauld (1858 - 1916) was a former soldier, explorer, geographer, and ethnographer, who became a Cistercian priest and hermit in the Algerian Sahara in 1901. Considered a martyr of faith, he soon became an object of veneration, and his beatification process started in 1927, eleven years after his death. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

Fast forward to 30 November 2016, 100 years exactly after Blessed Charles de Foucauld was killed: while repairing the roof of a chapel, a young French roofing craftsman named Charle fell over 15 meters and impaled himself on a church pew whose armrest pierced his left side. But astonishingly, as should have happened, his internal organs didn't "explode" and the fall didn't kill him, or even knock him unconscious. Charle recovered quickly. For several reasons, this miracle of healing is attributed to the intercession of Charles de Foucauld, and was retained for his canonisation on 15 May 2022.

Statue of Charles de Foucauld in front of Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune in Strasbourg / © Shutterstock, PhotoFires

Reasons to believe:

A fall from a height of over 15 metres and being impaled is usually fatal. However, the young man was able to get up and walk to seek help. He was hospitalised for 6 days and went back to work after 2 months, without suffering any physical or psychological side effects.

Seven doctors examined the young man and concluded unanimously that his survival had no medical explanation.

The roofing craftsman was helping to restore the St. Louis High School Chapel in Saumur, France, not far from the nearby church of Charles-de-Foucauld. The accident and miraculous protection took place on November 30, 2016, the eve of the 100th anniversary of the death of Blessed (now Saint) Charles de Foucauld, as the parishioners of that other parish were finishing a novena to ask for a second miracle required for his canonisation.

The miracle took place on 30 November, after vespers, which in the liturgy is already the beginning of the next day, 1 December. This date corresponds to the birth in heaven of Charles de Foucauld. Not only that, but 1 December 2016 was the exact 100th anniversary of the Blessed's death.

The two main protagonists - the saint and the recipient of the miracle - have the same first name, by one letter difference: Charles and Charle.

The scene of the miracle is a chapel opposite the cavalry school in Saumur, where Charles de Foucauld was a pupil, and where in 2016 preparations were under way for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Blessed's death.

Although neither baptised nor a believer, Charle readily agreed to share his medical records with the Church. The documents from this diocesan investigation were sent to Rome in March 2019. The occurrence was ruled to be "naturally inexplicable" and the Theological Commission of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints declared the protection and recovery of the young carpenter on 18 February 2020 to be "miraculous".

Summary:

On 30 November 2016, in the late afternoon, a twenty-one year old roofer was walking on top of the vaulted ceiling of the chapel at the Saint-Louis High School in Saumur. This chapel was being renovated, and Charle, rather than using the planking positioned above the extrados of the vaults, decided to take a shortcut: he stepped on a beam to meet up his colleague on the other side of the nave, and immediately the beam gave way under his feet: Charle fell 15.5 meter, at a speed of 48 mph. The fall lasted 1.8 second but Charle later testified that it felt like it had lasted a few minutes (he had time to reposition himself horizontally to avoid landing on his feet or head, grabbed his head to protect it, and closed his eyes after doing so!).

Charle landed on a pew and was impaled on its armrest, which pierced his thorax just below the heart, on the left side. He got up, still conscious, his abdomen pierced through, with a piece of wood protruding from his body, 45 mm x 45 mm and about 60 cm long!

He headed towards the back of the chapel to avoid upsetting the students and opened a side door, which opened onto the school hallway where some teachers were talking. He explained to them that he had fallen from the chapel roof and urged them to call an ambulance right away.

The emergency crew arrived and found the young man still conscious. Given the seriousness of the fall, they called a helicopter. It landed on the soccer field. But the piece of wood piercing Charle's body didn't fit through the door. The only solution was to call an ambulance. The fifty kilometres to the hospital in Angers certainly seemed a long way for the emergency services. The sedatives administered to the young man put him into a deep sleep.

Charle was taken to the operating table, and the surgeons set to work. Not a drop of blood had been spilt since the fall, probably due to a compression effect, but in this case the extraction could prove fatal. Incredibly, no vital organs were damaged, no arteries severed, and with the exception of a broken rib, his skeleton was intact. The next morning, Charle lay in his hospital room. Two days later, he was receiving visitors and chatting away, sitting relaxed on his bed. A few weeks later, he was already back at work... with no side-effects apart from two scars on both sides of his body!

We could stop here and say to ourselves: "He was pretty lucky!" Which is true, but many signs point to a miracle.

On 1 December 1916, Blessed Father Charles de Foucauld died, assassinated in Tamanrasset, Algeria. A cavalryman, he had spent a year at the Saumur cavalry school at the age of twenty. The accident occurred one hundred years to the day after Charles de Foucauld's birth in heaven and when the young roofer Charle was himself 21.

A few years earlier, a parish priest in Saumur, Father Régis Bompérin, with the approval of his bishop, had chosen Blessed Charles de Foucauld as the patron saint of his parish. This is how the parishioners became familiar with this fine figure of the Catholic Church: they went on pilgrimage in the footsteps of the Blessed, to the Holy Land, and then Father Vincent Artarit (Father Régis Bompérin's successor) organised pilgrimages to the Basilica of the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre (a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement), and to the church of Saint-Augustin, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, two places that Charles de Foucauld liked to visit.

2016 was the centenary of the Blessed's entrance into heaven. To mark the occasion, at the end of each service for the next year, the Charles-de-Foucauld parish recited a prayer of intercession to ask for a miracle from Charles de Foucauld to obtain his canonisation. To celebrate the centenary of his death, a parish celebration was scheduled for the following Sunday, 1 December (a Thursday in 2016), at the Saint-Louis high school in Saumur, exactly where the accident took place.

Here is the exchange that took place on the morning of Saturday 3 December, in the hospital room, when I was able to visit the young carpenter who had been injured. I belong to the parish dedicated to Charles de Foucauld, but I also run the family carpentry and joinery enterprise Asselin SAS, which employed the young man. His mother and sister were at his side. The accident victim, sitting up in bed, said to me: "I'm really sorry, I made a big mistake and I don't want to get you into trouble". I was taken aback and replied: "But you're alive, that's the only thing that matters".His mum said: "You know, our family isn't used to creating problems." I was overcome with emotion at this point; seeing our young friend in surprisingly good shape, I asked him:

"But how did this happen to you?
- It was the end of the day; I was in a hurry and, instead of using the platform to go over the vaults, I climbed up on a beam and felt the ground give way under my feet. I knew it was very high. I didn't want to fall on my feet, I didn't want to fall on my head, so I lay down horizontally. I put my head in my hands and l abandoned myself..."

Without realising it, he had repeated the key word in Blessed Charles de Foucauld's prayer of abandonment ("Father, I abandon myself into your hand..." etc). The young roofer didn't know this prayer: he wasn't a believer, and wasn't even baptised. And his first name was Charle, without an s...

Thanks to the "encounter" of Charles and Charle, the material and spiritual circumstances of the miracle enabled Pope Francis to declare Charles de Foucauld a saint on 15 May 2022. The elements of the investigation, and what followed, revealed many fioretti. Charle, for his part, fulfilled his wish to meet the Pope and still works as a roofing craftsman for the same company.

François Asselin, head of the company where the miraculously healed man is employed, and president of the Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises (CPME), is also a parishioner of the Charles-de-Foucauld church in Saumur.

Beyond reasons to believe:

Charles de Foucauld is an extraordinary saint to discover, who is very close to the mystery of the Holy Family of Nazareth, to Saint Joseph's trust in God, and to the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Going further:

Article Saint to be: The two miracles of Charles de Foucauld

More information:

Saint Charles de Foucauld: His Life and Spirituality by lsj Cathy Wright, Pauline Books & Media (May 6, 2022)
Charles de Foucauld by Jean-Jacques Antier, Ignatius Press, second edition (April 11, 2022)
Charle's video testimony, KTO: " The man miraculously healed by Charles de Foucauld testimony"