Charles Lavigerie
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His Eminence Charles Martial Allemand Lavigerie M. Afr. |
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|---|---|
| Cardinal Priest of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura | |
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| Installed | 3 July 1882 |
| Term ended | 26 November 1892 |
| Predecessor | Pietro Gianelli |
| Successor | Georg von Kopp |
| Other posts |
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| Orders | |
| Ordination | 2 June 1849 |
| Consecration | 22 March 1863 by Archbishop Marie-Dominique-Auguste Sibour |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
31 October 1825 Bayonne, France |
| Died | 26 November 1892 (aged 67) Algiers. Algeria |
| Coat of arms |  |
Charles Martial Allemand Lavigerie (31 October 1825 – 26 November 1892) was a French cardinal, archbishop of Carthage and Algiers and primate of Africa. A Catholic priest who became a bishop in France, Lavigerie established French Catholic missions and missionary orders to work across Africa. Lavigerie promoted Catholicism among the people of North Africa, as well as the black natives further south. He was equally ardent to transform them into French subjects. He crusaded against the slave trade, for which he founded the order of priests called the White Fathers, so named for their white cassocks and red fezzes. He also established similar orders of brothers and nuns. He sent his missionaries to the Sahara, Sudan, Tunisia, and Tripolitania. His efforts were supported by the Pope and German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Although anti-clericalism was a major issue in France, the secular leader Léon Gambetta proclaimed that “anti-clericalism is not an article for export,” and supported his work.
Born at Bayonne, he was educated at St Sulpice, Paris. Ordained a priest in 1849, he was professor of ecclesiastical history at the Sorbonne from 1854 to 1856.
In 1856, he accepted the direction of the schools of the East, and was thus for the first time brought into contact with the Islamic world. C'est là, he wrote, que j'ai connu enfin ma vocation. (It was there that I learned my calling.) In 1860, as Director for oriental schools, he travelled to Lebanon and Syria to administer relief to Christians there, following the massacre by the Druze. Activity in missionary work, especially in alleviating the distresses of the victims of the Druzes, soon brought him prominently into notice. He was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor and, in October 1861, shortly after his return to Europe, was appointed French auditor at Rome.
Two years later he was raised to the see of Nancy, where he remained for four years, during which the diocese became one of the best administered in France. He declined the appointment of Archbishop of Lyons, requesting instead an appointment to the see of Algiers, just raised to an archbishopric. Lavigerie landed in Africa on 11 May 1868, when the great famine was already making itself felt, and he began in November to collect the orphans into villages.
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