Charles Lavigerie was born on October 31, 1825, in Bayonne, Southwest France, into a family that was not particularly fervent from a religious standpoint. A brief stay in the diocesan minor seminary made it clear to his superiors that the young man had particular gifts. Charles was sent to Paris to continue his studies where he was ordained a priest in June, 1949. He became a doctor in Theology and in Church History and taught at the Sorbonne University. His historical studies made it possible for the future missionary to develop a sense of history and its perspectives, which accompanied him throughout his life.
In 1856, Fr. Charles Lavigerie was appointed by the Archbishop of Paris to direct the Society for the Promotion of Education in the Near East, founded to support the Catholic efforts in the Middle East. Following this assignment, Fr. Charles went on a trip for several weeks to Syria to help the victims of the massacres that arose in the Kurdish uprising. This journey deeply marked Lavigerie's ecclesiastical thinking and vision, which throughout his life had been greatly focused on the Christians in the East.
After spending two years at the Holy See as an auditor at the Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota, Fr. Charles Lavigerie was appointed Bishop of Nancy at 38 years of age by Pope Pius IX, who had appreciated his intelligence and vibrant spirit. Having become the youngest bishop of France, he undertook important reforms in his diocese, especially in clergy formation, which he considered a priority for the Church in France, increasing his prestige among the bishops of the country. At the end of 1866, with a proposal from the French government and consent of the Holy See, Bishop Lavigerie was offered the vacant position of Archbishop of Algiers. He accepted the position without hesitation, which was considered a position lacking in prestige, because it offered him the opportunity to carry out the missionary life which he had kept in his heart since his major seminary years. Lavigerie arrived in Algiers, a Mediterranean land of Arab culture and the Muslim religion, in May, 1867, which was then under French rule. In his first pastoral letter addressed to his new flock, Bishop Lavigerie set out two main directives: having pastoral opportunities for all the people in his diocese, Christians and Muslims alike, and the conviction that his office look beyond the limits of the Great Sahara to bring the Gospel to the little known regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. This openness to the heart of the continent was recognized by Pope Pius IX who, in 1868, appointed him the Apostolic Nuncio to the Sahara and Sudan. While working in this new role, he founded two missionary institutes dedicated to the people of Algeria and to the Sub-Saharan region as a whole. Thus, in 1868, he established the Society of Missionaries of Africa, often called the 'White Fathers,' and the Congregation of Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (SMNDA), or the 'White Sisters.’
The newly elected Pope, Leo XIII, accepting Lavigerie's request, entrusted him with the task of carrying out the first evangelization in the African Great Lakes region. For ten consecutive years beginning in 1878, a caravan of around ten missionaries left every year for the central regions of Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania), Uganda and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, from Kivu to Ituri. Bishop Lavigerie also founded a community of 'White Father' missionaries in Jerusalem in 1878. Upon his request, he was entrusted with the care of the Pool of Bethesda (Betzaeta) and the nearby Basilica of St. Anne.
In 1881, Bishop Lavigerie was appointed Administrator of Tunis by the Holy See. In March 1882, in appreciation of his competence, his capacity for mediation and his missionary commitment, Pope Leo XIII elevated Archbishop Charles Lavigerie to the cardinalate and, in 1884, he was appointed titular Archbishop of Carthage.
Struck by the stories from missionaries and explorers about the atrocities of slave trafficking in Equatorial Africa, the Cardinal committed himself to an anti-slavery campaign between 1888-1890. On the occasion of the publication of Leo XIII's encyclical In plurimis about the abolition of slavery in Brazil, Cardinal Lavigerie got the Holy Father's authorization to denounce the tragedy of slave raids in Equatorial Africa. In just a few months, the Cardinal organized a campaign of public conferences involving all of the major European powers.
Looking to his own native country, Cardinal Lavigerie, inspired by the Pope's vision, invited the Church of France to abandon its radical opposition to the government and open herself up to dialogue.
Cardinal Lavigerie, a man of deep faith and nourished by an authentic spiritual life, austere in his private life and a pastor capable of attracting many young people to missionary work, died in Algiers on November 26, 1892.