Faced with the emotion caused by the revelations of sexual assault committed by Abbot Pierre, the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) opened access to the documents, without waiting for the deadline of 75 years after his death in 2007.
Church archives reveal how, in the late 1950s, the episcopal hierarchy kept silent about the behavior “problematic» of Abbé Pierre, a “seriously mentally ill“.
Following the revelations of sexual assault committed by Abbot Pierre, the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) opened access to the archives in mid-September, without waiting for the deadline of 75 years after his death. Researchers and journalists can now consult a cardboard file a few centimeters thick at the headquarters of the archives of the Catholic Church, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris.
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The 216 documents in the file, combining typed letters and handwritten letters, complete what the president of the CEF Éric de Moulins-Beaufort affirmed on September 16: “a few bishops at least» were aware «from 1955-1957” of “serious behavior» by Abbot Pierre «towards women“.
The nature of the acts mentioned raises questions
However, nowhere in these archives is the exact nature of the acts specified. The letters speak of “accidents“, of “moral miseries“, of “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 women, some of whom were minors at the time of the events.
The most explicit document, a letter dated November 13, 1964 perhaps from the general secretary of the episcopate, summarizes the affair by speaking of “seriously mentally ill» being the subject of «loss of all self-control, especially after successful bookss” and ensures that “young girls were marked for life“. Abbot Pierre, whose real name is Henri Grouès, acted “without it being possible to catch him in the act», adds this document.
“All this may one day or another be known”
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, notably that of Grenoble, André-Jacques Fougerat, on whom the Abbot Pierre.
Some are well aware of the issue: “We must not hide from ourselves that all this may one day become 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.
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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 by his action for the homeless. -housed during the winter of 1954.
In March 1958, the Assembly of Cardinals and Archbishops (ACA) announced “his worry at seeing so many journalists approach him“. “Is it appropriate for his person to be displayed in this way, enlarged?», asked the bishop of Besançon in 1959, incredulously.
Emmaüs, founded by Abbé Pierre, appears deeply divided. An administrator of the association, Pierre Join-Lambert, presented in June 1959 his “worry» to see 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“, enameled meeting “very distressing incidents with crying“.
A stay in a psychiatric clinic
The file also depicts a man “whose companies completely escape the control of the hierarchy» (March 1958), which “tries to escape medical discipline» (August 1958).
Henri Grouès was interned at the end of 1957 in a psychiatric clinic near Geneva (Switzerland) where he suffered “shock treatment“.
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Concerned by his exit, the deputy secretary general of the episcopate reflects, if the abbot is “incurable“, to find him “a clinic or asylum that shelters him until the end of his days»; or if it heals to direct it “towards a ministry of silent dedication, in the heart of an undernourished country, in a bush hospital, in a village of lepers“.
The abbot finally left the clinic in 1958. Despite internal concerns about his resumption of activity, he planned trips to Lebanon, India… Over the years, various “boundaries» are opposed to him: surveillance by an accompanist (“socius”), ban on confessing, speaking in public… How far did the information spread? Pope Francis affirmed in mid-September that the Vatican was aware, at least since his death in 2007, of the accusations of sexual violence.