French bishops request criminal probe into abuse claims against Abbé Pierre

Abbé Pierre, born Henri Marie Joseph Grouès in 1912, was a prominent French Catholic priest. He died in 2007. Allegations of sexual abuse were first publicly reported in 2024. / Studio Harcourt Paris / Wikimedia (CC BY 3.0)

CNA Newsroom, Jan 18, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The bishops of France on Friday formally requested prosecutors launch a criminal investigation into sexual abuse allegations against Abbé Pierre, a prominent priest who founded the poverty ministry Emmaus.  

The move follows nine new accusations in a new report released on Jan. 13 against the French priest, who died in 2007 at age 94.

Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF), announced the formal request on Jan. 17 during a radio interview, emphasizing the need to uncover any additional victims.

While the late Abbé Pierre can no longer be prosecuted, the Paris prosecutor’s office could still investigate potential accomplices or failures to report abuse and assault at the time.

Latest Developments

Earlier this week, Emmaus International, Emmaus France, and the Abbé Pierre Foundation released their third and final collection of testimonies documenting nine new accounts of alleged sexual abuse. According to the organization, this brings the total number of testimonies to 33.

Allegations against the priest were first reported in 2023 when Emmaus France received a statement from a woman accusing Pierre of sexual assault. Further testimonies were released in July 2024 in an independent report commissioned by Emmaus. The documented allegations span multiple decades, from the 1950s through the 2000s, with victims including Emmaus employees, volunteers, and young women in Pierre’s social circle.

The French bishops opened files on Abbé Pierre in September 2023. These documents would normally have remained sealed at the National Center of Archives of the Church of France until 2082.

Background

Abbé Pierre founded the Emmaus Movement in Paris in 1949. Before these recent allegations, he was widely regarded as one of the Church of France’s most beloved and iconic figures. He was mainly known for assisting the homeless population in France and establishing the “Trève Hivernale,” or “Winter Truce” law in the 1950s, which still protects tenants from eviction during winter months.

The investigation into Pierre represents another significant chapter in the French Catholic Church’s broader reckoning with clerical abuse. In 2021, a landmark report by an Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church reported that an estimated 330,000 children were sexually abused over 70 years by clergy or church-affiliated individuals.