People: Abbé Pierre
8/5/1912 - 1/22/2007
An truly extraordinary life driven by humility and love for the disenfranchised, but tarnished by the multiple sexual abuse allegations that surfaced after his death…
“Le plus grand échec est de ne vas avoir le courage d’oser.” “The biggest failure is not to have the courage to dare.” Abbé Pierre
I learned of this brilliant and flawed human being when a French friend of mine spoke of him in all his complexity as we were walking in the vines. It left me hungry to know more….
The story of Abbé Pierre is arresting and disturbing. It is also beautiful. It is full to overflowing, but in it’s totality it was alarming, unsettling and troubling when all is said and done.
To begin, how wonderful that a person such as this humble man has come to pass through our weary world to do so much good for so many. In some ways he was full of all the possible benevolence you can squeeze into one human being and then some. A man dedicated to the poor, homeless and those seeking refuge from war, hate and persecution. A man selfless, humble and generous of spirit, devoted to a life of simplicity and sacrifice. A life bequeathed to giving and easing the miseries of others. His world was inoculated with a selfless love for humanity, seething to make a difference to those most disenfranchised. A lofty and beautiful goal, but in this case it is impossible to speak of Abbé Pierre’s goodness without recognizing his many deeply serious and painful flaws that only came to light after his death. He is now seen by many as a humanitarian giant who used his position, his charisma and his authority to abuse and slience others.
Abbé Pierre was voted the most popular French person 17 years in a row, and in 2005 voted the 3rd greatest French person of all time, but this was all before the allegations of sexual harrassment, abuse and forced sexual acts surfaced which were subsequently validated by the Egaé Group. The Egaé group is a French consulting agency which was commissioned by Emmaüs and the Abbé Pierre Foundation in mid-2024 to investigate the many allegations of sexual abuse by Abbé Pierre. After exhausted investigations the Egaé Group reported a total of 33 known alleged sexual victims with claims spanning from the 1950s to early 2000s. Their work catalyzed major institutional responses as they documented and corroborated decades long testimonies against Abbé Pierre. He was once a beloved national hero and symbol of Christian compassion, and now fallen from grace for all time.
Some history…
Abbé Pierre, was born on August 5th, 1912, in Lyon, France, to a wealthy Catholic family. He was one of 8 children and his birth name was Henri Joseph Groués. He possessed an innate pull toward a religious life very early on. Then after participating in a pilgrimage to Rome at the age of 16, he became engaged in living a life of humility and selflessness. So at about the age of 18, he began his journey to live a religious life and joined the Capuchin Order of the Franciscans. He became a monk and took the name Brother Phillipe. He rejected his inheritance and his family wealth, going forward to donating all his material possessions to the poor and homeless. He then spent about 7 years at the monastery in Crest-Drôme, France, which he left in 1938 due to failing health and snot too long after, he was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.
In 1939, a few months before the invasion of Poland, he was assigned to the Cathédral Notre-Dame in Grenoble, France. Shortly after his move to Grenoble and the start of WW ll, he became active with the French Resistance. He developed false identities, of which one was Abbé Pierre, to insulate himself from discovery by the Gestapo and police of the Vichy regime. He fought Nazi oppression by actively working to protect the Jewish children whose parents had been arrested. He continued on to help Jews and all others at risk of persecution by forging documents, finding safe houses, and organizing escape routes across the border to Switzerland. Of note, Jacques de Gaulle, the younger brother of Charles de Gaulle, and his wife, Jeanne were among the many Abbé Pierre helped to escape from France to Switzerland, safe from the reach of the Gestapo. In this effort to move people across the Swiss border, he established and led a group of maquis (local group of partisans) in the Vercors Plateau and Chartreuse Mountains. It is impossible to know the exact number of lives saved due to his direct and indirect efforts in the Resistance, but I have read it may bave been possibly hundreds.
Abbé Pierre was also widely responsible for the efforts made to protect French citizens from serving in the Nazi program “Service de travail obligatoire” (STO), a German program of mandatory enlistment. This encompassed deportation of French workers to hard labor in German work camps, where they were used in the work force to support the German war effort. To thwart this program, he created a refugee camp in Grenoble for French citizens who resisted enlistment in the STO. He was eventually discovered and arrested in 1944 near the end of the war. When released he fled to Spain for a short period of time, before returning to France, where he became involved in French politics. Then in 1945 he was elected to the National Assembly. In 1949 he founded Emmaus, a secular charitable foundation charged with securing basic shelter, clothing, food and community for the poor, homeless and those seeking refuge from persecution. He bought an old run down neglected house located about 11 km from the eastern suburbs of Paris (Neuilly-Plaisance, France). It was in this house and at that moment, the first Emmaus community was born.
Abbé Pierre left politics in 1951 to return to his beloved beginnings as a priest of and for the people. He continued his work to cultivate a community where the poor and homeless could live safely, and contribute towards a thriving working community. This is at the very heart of the Emmaus movement and his unwavering purpose; to shelter, feed and protect the homeless and disenfranchised of France.
The Emmaus movement remained in tact and thriving, but struggling. Then in 1954 the movement began to gain momentum with a significant influx of financial support from the French citizens at large. This happened after an especially harsh, cold winter when many homeless died of exposure to the cold and starvation. This was the moment when Pierre made his famous heart rendering appeal to the French public via radio and the Press. His speech was successful in bringing the harsh, ugly dark realities into the light, igniting a fire of support for the French homeless and the Emmaus movement. Here is an excerpt of that famous speech that became known far and wide as;
“Abbé Pierre’s call for an uprising of kindness”
“My friends, come and help… A woman froze to death tonight, on the pavement of Sebastopol Boulevard, clutching the eviction notice that had made her homeless the day before … Every night, more than 2,000people endure the cold, without food, without bread, more than one almost naked. To face this horror, emergency lodgings are not enough. Hear me; we have to act now and open aid centers for the homeless. There is no time to waste.” - Abbé Pierre
Thanks to Abbé Pierre, Emmaus continues today as a secular, not for profit charity maintaining its primary mission to fight homelessness and poverty and has many other charitable services. There are ~400 Emmaus organizations in 44 countries all due to the vision of this one extraordinary man.
Abbé Pierre steadily remained the spokesman for the homeless and continuously went on to champion charitable endeavors throughout his lifetime. His guiding principle of love for all, but especially for those shattered by life’s miseries and misfortunes was unwavering. Again, I need to interject that given all of these beautiful acts what was revealed posthumously remains a deep black and painful wound for those he abused and his legacy at large.
It is also important to note that Abbé Pierre, a deeply religious man, was not always closely aligned with the Vatican’s teachings and doctrines. His socialist leaning beliefs put him at odds with the church and he often criticized the Vatican for its opulent spending and lavish lifestyle. He did not maintain celibacy, and as was stated previously it was revealed that he was a serial sexual abuser. He believed that women should be allowed to be ordained, that clergy should be allowed to be married, that same sex couples should be able to adopt, and that contraception should be supported. His views on Catholic dogma can be read in detail in his final book, “Why, Oh Why, My God?”.
No longer remembered solely as a great humanitarian figure, which is well deserved, but also as a complex man who will be deeply and severely marred for all time by his serial acts of sexual abuse.
Abbé Pierre died of a lung infection at Val de Grâce military hospital in Paris on January 22nd, 2007 at the age of 94.
RIP Abbé Pierre
