PARIS (FRANCE)
La Croix International [Montrouge Cedex, France]
January 14, 2025
By Youna Rivallain
[See also the 19-page report.]
A third report published by the French independent firm Egaé, which Emmaus International commissioned to shed light on the actions of the once-renowned Capuchin priest, Abbé Pierre, revealed nine new accounts of sexual abuse by the priest who died in 2007.
A third independent report on Abbe Pierre, founder of Emmaus International, revealed new accusations of abuse against the late Capuchin priest, including the rape of a minor and incestuous sexual assault.
The investigation, which was commissioned by Emmaus International, established in 1949 to combat poverty and homelessness, was conducted by the Egaé firm, led by Caroline De Haas, a leading figure in France in the fight against sexist and sexual violence.
The report’s findings were transmitted via videoconference on January 13 to Emmaus representatives in 40 countries. The 19-page publication, which continues the first two Egaé reports on Abbé Pierre’s actions published in July and September 2024, respectively, definitively buried the heroic image the priest had enjoyed for seven decades.
According to the report, Abbé Pierre exhibited a complex, manipulative personality, capable of using threats to commit abuses between the 1960s and 2000. Among them was “an act involving penetration of a minor” — a boy aged nine at the time of the events — who did not wish the details of his testimony to be specified.
However, the report, which was published on the Emmaus website, stated the survivor “provided elements to attest to the veracity of his testimony.” A woman, a member of the priest’s family, also confided that she had been the victim of incestuous abuse, committed “in the late 1990s” — when the priest was almost 90 years old. According to her, the priest touched her breast, forced her to kiss him, and made sexual comments.
Born in Lyon, Abbé Pierre founded Emmaus International in 1949 and was hailed as a champion of the poor and a national hero until his death in 2007 at the age of 94. The anti-poverty movement he founded launched an investigation when a victim came forward accusing the Capuchin priest of abusing her in the 1970s when she was a minor.
Since then, dozens of victims have come forward with their allegations of abuse and sexual assault against Abbé Pierre.
Victims from a wide variety of backgrounds
The other testimonies were given by women who had met Abbé Pierre in a wide variety of circumstances: two nurses working in hospitals where he was treated; an airline stewardess; an Emmaüs employee; a participant in a youth camp; a young woman working in a hotel where he stayed. All of them denounced being touched on the chest, the sex, the buttocks, forced kisses, or acts of exhibition by the man who was considered an icon at the time.
In addition to these nine new testimonials, the Egaé group announced that it had heard from several people who had taken the word of Abbé Pierre’s victims — the victims having died, or not wishing to testify, or not being able to be heard. “At least nine additional people (in addition to these nine new testimonies, editor’s note) have been identified,” says the report. Among them, two accounts concern two boys aged between 8 and 10, and would have taken place before 1965.
A modus operandi
These elements, which also appeared in the first two Egaé reports, raised fears of the apparent modus operandi of a serial sexual abuser. In an initial report published July 17, also carried out by Egaé at the joint request of Emmaüs and the Abbé Pierre Foundation, seven initial testimonies referred to sexual assaults in the form of forced touching and kissing. An initial psychological analysis of Abbé Pierre suggested that older incidents might have surfaced.
Indeed, past September 6, a second damning report brought to light 17 new testimonies concerning acts allegedly committed between the 1950s and the 2000s in France, the United States, Morocco, and Switzerland. The report mentioned “unsolicited contact on the breasts,” “forced kissing,” “forced fellatio,” “repeated sexual contact on a vulnerable person,” “repeated acts of sexual penetration,” and “sexual contact on a child” — the youngest victim being nine years old at the time of the events.
Creation of a dedicated, permanent body
In the wake of the second report, many cities renamed streets named after the priest. The Abbé Pierre Foundation, which co-sponsored the report, announced that it was changing its name “but not its fight,” as Christophe Robert, the foundation’s general delegate, said. In mid-December, the French newspaper Le Monde published extracts from the priest’s correspondence, revealing a tormented personality that was haunted by questions of sexuality from an early age and going so far as to injure his penis with a knife.
In all, the Emmaus movement’s hotline recorded 33 direct testimonies of sexual violence committed by Abbé Pierre in the space of six months. The Egaé firm also identified more than 20 other incidents, bringing the number of identified victims to at least 57. After the other two, this third report was expected to be the last, bringing Egaé’s mission to a close. “The Egaé group’s mission to gather the views of victims will end at the end of January,” explained the firm in an e-mail sent to victims. “From February onwards, a dedicated and permanent organization will take over.”
In a statement issued on January 13, the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) assured the victims of its support. “To realize that he used his media aura and the social work he had built up — arousing, in his wake, the commitment of so many French people to the service of the poorest — to sexually abuse women, children, and people in precarious situations, is appalling.” The CEF also encouraged each victim to contact “if they so wish, one of the church’s listening or support services; or the system set up by Emmaus, whose work of truth that the movement has undertaken by listening to victims is to be commended.”