The Church asks the courts to investigate Abbot Pierre

After opening its archives, the Catholic Church took a highly symbolic measure on Friday by asking the courts to open an investigation into Abbot Pierre, in the wake of new revelations of sexual violence.

The president of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) Éric de Moulins-Beaufort announced on RMC that he had “seized the justice system” on Tuesday so that it could study the possibility of an investigation into the priest, long an iconic figure of the defense of the deprived but who was the subject of new extremely serious accusations this week.

The manager explains that he “wrote a report to the Paris prosecutor to ask him to consider opening an investigation into Abbé Pierre”. In a press release, the CEF specifies that this report was made “for non-reporting of rape and sexual assault on vulnerable people and minors”.

Investigate “possible other victims or accomplices”

It is also a question of investigating “possible other victims or possible accomplices”, specified Mgr de Moulins-Beaufort, stressing that the prosecution “has means of investigation that a historical commission of inquiry like that that Emmaüs has brought together (…) has not”. This commission began its work in January for a foreseeable duration of two years.

Because we must go “to the end of the truth”, insisted the president of the CEF, repeating his “horror” after the new revelations from the specialist firm Egaé on Monday and the broadcast of two television documentaries this week.

Targeted by nine new accusations

In the report published Monday, the priest who died in 2007 is targeted by nine new accusations of sexual violence, which brings to 33 the total number of testimonies since the first report from the Egaé cabinet, commissioned by Emmaüs, which created an explosion in July .

Among the new revelations, a member of Father Pierre’s family claims to have suffered “sexual contact on her breasts and mouth at the end of the 90s” from him. Another testimony mentions a “penetrative sexual act on a minor boy”.

“All of this taken together paints the portrait of a predator,” said Tarek Daher, general delegate of Emmaus France, on Monday.

Age of facts

According to Mgr de Moulins-Beaufort, “with each cabinet report we cross a threshold in the discovery of what he was able to do”, and “a sort of system that he seems to have built”.

Legal action, however, risks encountering obstacles, given the age of the facts dating back to a period ranging from the 1950s to the 2000s.

These facts cannot be the subject of criminal proceedings in the case of Abbé Pierre, who is dead, which leads to the extinction of all proceedings. As for the people who did not denounce the acts, the age of the facts makes it probable that any possible offense will be prescribed – even if the calculation in this matter is always complicated.

An “immense sentence”

Friday, the president of the CEF reiterated to the victims his “immense grief”, and encouraged “any person who has suffered sexual violence at the hands of Abbé Pierre to come forward if they wish to one of the mechanisms of the Church, or set up by Emmaüs”.

Since the revelations in July the Church has found itself under pressure to shed light on the silence surrounding the behavior of Abbot Pierre.

Mgr de Moulins Beaufort has repeatedly assured that the affair was not public knowledge within the institution, even if some bishops may have been aware of problematic behavior at the time.

The CEF opened the Church archives on Abbot Pierre in September, deviating from the usual deadline of 75 years. In the thin cardboard file consulted by AFP, letters and notes certainly evoke “problematic” behavior but the nature of it is never explained.

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