this letter found in the Church archives, in 1964

See my news
Follow News

Bishops fearing scandal, Abbot Pierre “very ill” and escaping all control: the Church archives reveal how, at the end of the 1950s, the episcopal hierarchy kept silent on behavior judged ” problematic “ but never named.

It’s a dossier cardboard a few centimeters thick that researchers and journalists can consult at the headquarters of the archives of the Catholic Church, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris.

216 documents in the file

Faced with the emotion caused by the revelations of sexual assault committed by Abbé Pierre, the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) opened in mid-September access to documentswithout waiting for the deadline of 75 years after his death in 2007.

The 216 documents in the file, mixing typed letters and handwritten letters, complete what the president of the CEF Eric de Moulins-Beaufort affirmed on September 16: “At least a few bishops” were aware “from 1955-1957” of Abbé Pierre’s “serious behavior” “towards women”.

However, nowhere in these archives is the exact nature of the acts specified. The letters speak of “accidents”, of “moral miseries”“reprehensible acts”, “abnormal state”…

It is difficult to understand whether these periphrases hide consensual relationships, but proscribed by the Church, or sexual assaults, as accused by around twenty womensome of which were minor at the time of the events.

The most explicit document, a letter of November 13, 1964 perhaps emanating from the general secretary of the episcopate, summarizes the affair by speaking of “severely mentally ill” being the subject of “loss of all self-control, especially after successful books” and assures that “young girls have been marked for life”.

Abbé Pierre, whose real name is Henri Grouès, acted “without it being possible to catch him in the act”, adds this photocopied and almost illegible document.

” Worry “

Since the revelations of the Egaé cabinet this summer, the question of the silence of institutions has been central.

In the file appear the successive directors of the episcopate secretariat: Jean-Marie Villot (1950-1960), Julien Gouet (1960-1966), as well as several bishops, particularly that of Grenoble, André-Jacques Fougeraton which Abbot Pierre depended.

Some are well aware of the issue: “We must not not to hide that all this could one day or another be known and that public opinion would then be very surprised to see that the Catholic hierarchy has maintained its confidence in Abbot Pierre,” wrote Jean-Marie Villot to Cardinal Pierre Gerlier, archbishop of Lyon, in January 1958.

Because the fear of scandal is recurring, coupled with a concern about the media stature of Abbé Pierre, a resistance fighter during the war, elected deputy for Meurthe-et-Moselle at the Liberation, and crowned with his action for the homeless during the winter of 1954.

In March 1958, the Assembly of Cardinals and Archbishops (ACA) expressed “its concern at seeing so many journalists approach it.” “Is it appropriate that his person be thus displayed, enlarged? », asked the bishop of Besançon in 1959, incredulously.

Emmausfounded by Abbé Pierre, appears deeply divided.
An administrator of the association, Pierre Join-Lambert, expressed in June 1959 his “concern” at seeing the abbot received by General de Gaulle.

“All possible blackmail is to be expected,” he explains, recounting a general assembly of Emmaus where “some protested against his presence”, a meeting punctuated by “very painful incidents with tears”.

Source AFP

Follow all the news from your favorite cities and media by subscribing to Mon Actu.