The Catholic Church in France was already aware in 2021 of allegations that the popular Roman Catholic priest Abbe Pierre, who devoted his life to helping France’s poor and homeless, should have committed sexual abuse. This is what members of an independent commission of inquiry say on Saturday.
Abbe Pierre, or Henri Groues, was a Capuchin monk and ordained Catholic priest who died in 2007, aged 94.
His legacy is dominated by his great efforts to help the poor and people in need.
He founded the Emmaus and Abbe Pierre Stiftelsen charities. He became known for his uncompromising stance when it came to helping the homeless and others on the fringes of society. He was regularly named the most popular person in France.
But this week it has emerged that seven women have told about sexual assault or sexual harassment from Abbe Pierre himself. And on Saturday, four people involved in the investigations said they had already provided incriminating testimony against him in October 2021.
– Among the 1,200 witness statements submitted and processed by our team, there are three that directly concern Abbe Pierre, write four of the investigators in an article in Le Monde. One of the cases concerns an episode in Belgium in the early 1980s.
During the war, Abbe helped Pierre Charles de Gaulle, who later became French president, to escape the country, and since then he helped countless poor and homeless people.
After the war, Pierre formed the Friends of Emmaus association with a war comrade. The association still exists, fights poverty and Emmaus International now has centers in 50 countries worldwide, including Denmark.
Abbe Pierre was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and polls in recent years have time and again given Abbe Pierre the title of the most popular person in France ahead of politicians and celebrities.
The last years of his life Abbe Pierre lived in a boarding house outside Rouen in northwestern France.
Abbe Pierre died in a military hospital in Paris in January 2007.
/ritzau/Reuters
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
