This is another development in a case that seems endless. Nearly two months after the publication of a first report implicating Abbé Pierre – who died in 2007 – for acts of sexual assault committed between the end of the 1970s and 2005 on seven women (more than twenty have now spoken out), the investigation unit of Radio France revealed new documents on Monday, September 9. In particular, handwritten letters written by the priest, threatening people around him questioning his behavior.
In a letter scribbled at the end of 1955, Henri Grouès (the civil name of Abbé Pierre) addressed an American student, Suther Marshall, a few months after his return from a stay in the United States: “You promised not to interfere in this multitude of things where you can only accumulate devastation, chaos and infection.”writes the religious man. “Know that no repeat offense will go unanswered, and if necessary [mes réponses seront] brutal, surgical.”
Abbé Pierre’s American stay – in the form of a tour of several cities between April and May 1955 – took a turn, as revealed Liberation early August, to disaster. Although the priest met President Eisenhower at the White House, his visit was cut short: his behavior was denounced by several women in New York, Chicago and Washington. To avoid scandal, the decision was taken urgently to shorten the stay and to exfiltrate Abbé Pierre.
“The Church could not afford for such a scandal to break out”
The investigation unit of Radio France affirmed this Monday that Suther Marshall – who participated in the organization of Henri Grouès’ visit across the Atlantic – had then warned a close friend of Abbé Pierre by letter: “I saw so many things during the journey, ways of acting of the Father as an individual. I think, for example, in Chicago, when it had been explicitly decided that the condition of continuing the journey was that the father would never be alone. He agreed and after [il disparaissait] for hours, to the point of being late for a meeting.” “There is no explicit reference to priest’s impulsesbut the message got through”specifies Radio France.
According to documents consulted by Releaseimportant figures in the Catholic hierarchy were aware of Abbé Pierre’s problematic behavior since the 1950s. He was also placed under the surveillance of the Church by a “partner”Jacques Monnier: a chaperone and spiritual advisor who accompanies him at all times and who is asked to keep his protégé aside. “We saw the Bishop of Grenoble [le diocèse où l’abbé Pierre a été ordonné]. Like everyone else, he wishes you could hide for a year. It would be a moral and physical boost after your shock.”wrote Jacques Monnier to the priest, in a letter revealed this Monday by Radio France.
The priest was interned in Switzerland in 1958 at the Prangins psychiatric clinic for sleep cures, officially for health reasons. According to historian Axelle Brodiez-Dolino, interviewed by Radio France, “The real reason for this distancing is the fear of a sexual scandal. The Church needed Abbé Pierre to restore its image and popularity and could not allow such a scandal to break out.”
Despite this period of isolation, the priest’s actions seem to have been repeated in 1959 in Quebec. In another letter dated September 6, revealed by public radio, Father Pierre writes: “Everything in these accusations is false. Nothing of this kind of misery has ever existed, it has never existed anywhere, none of these miserable police facts of which you have spoken. If more than my word is necessary, I can give you an oath to that.” Henri Grouès then addressed a Quebec cardinal whom he thought was aware of his practices. He denied it and continued to be threatening: “Those who make these statements should know that if they confirm such infamous slander, I will not be able to avoid prosecuting them in court.”
“Very sick”
In another letter – dated June 1958 – made public this Monday, the priest is described as “very sick” by the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Feltin. Within the Emmaüs movement, former executives told Radio France that the priest’s urges were known and that instructions were given “not to leave Abbé Pierre alone with a woman because he might behave badly.” According to one of them, Abbé Pierre’s last private secretary, Laurent Desmard, entrusted him in 2010 [trois ans après la mort du prêtre, ndlr] be trained to avoid the attacks of the man of the Church on women: “There were warning signs: Abbé Pierre’s face and eyes were changing. [Laurent Desmard] stood ready to intervene to physically separate the abbot from the women he was receiving.” Statements that the former secretary of Abbé Pierre denies.
On Friday, September 6, a new wave of accusations of sexual violence targeting Abbé Pierre was made public in a report: “To date, it is possible to identify at least 17 additional people who have suffered violence”noted the specialist firm Egaé. The vast majority of these report contacts “unsolicited on the breasts”of “forced kisses”but also of “repeated sexual contact with a vulnerable person”d’“repeated acts of sexual penetration” or even of “sexual contact with a child”. A woman testifies in particular to having suffered, in 1974 and 1975 in Ile-de-France, “forced kisses” et «des contacts» unsolicited when she was 8 or 9 years old. The Abbé-Pierre Foundation announced its decision to change its name.
Emmaüs International has also admitted to studying possible compensation for the victims of Abbé Pierre, its general director announced on Monday. “This is a very important issue that we are working on, that we are thinking about at the moment,” said Adrien Chaboche when interviewed on RTL. “It’s a process that takes a little bit of time,” more “we are working on it.”
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