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.
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Arundel Castle in Sussex has been the seat of the Duke of Norfolk’s ancestors for 850 years. / Miles Sabin from Brighton, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
London, England, May 4, 2023 / 09:00 am (CNA).
The Earl Marshal of England is little known and rarely seen, but he oversees the world’s biggest spectacles. Queen Elizabeth’s funeral last year is reported to have attracted more than 4 billion viewers, making it perhaps the most-watched event in history. This was the finest moment for the current Earl Marshall, Edward Fitzalan-Howard, more formally known as His Grace the Most Noble Duke of Norfolk.
The 18th Duke of Norfolk, Edward Fitzalan-Howard, is the hereditary Earl Marshal of England and is the country’s premier lay Catholic. Photo courtesy of WIKIMEDIA PIC
The 18th Duke spent 20 years planning the late queen’s funeral but has had far less time to arrange the coronation of the United Kingdom’s new monarch, King Charles III, which will take place Saturday, May 6. Despite making the news for dangerous driving and his recent divorce and remarriage, Fitzalan-Howard will try to be as inconspicuous as possible at the coronation, just as he was at the queen’s recent funeral, which will be difficult for a man wearing the most extravagant uniform outside the military or the Church of England.
Since 1484 the Earl Marshal has supervised royal events through the College of Arms with assistance from quaintly named characters such as Garter King of Arms and Rouge Dragon Pursuivant. The payment these heralds receive is appropriately medieval.
Although it is often stated that the Dukes of Norfolk have held this position since 1672, the first Earl Marshal of the Howard family was John, 1st Duke of Norfolk, in 1483. A few other families have also had a turn, especially during the tumultuous Tudor era. The most peculiar choice was Henry VIII, made Earl Marshal by his father at the age of 3.
Queen Elizabeth proceeding to Westminster for her coronation in 1559 with the Duke of Norfolk at top right. PUBLIC DOMAIN
It’s not surprising that there is confusion bordering on bewilderment about this post. The Howard family has held different titles going back more than seven centuries. On occasion these have been stripped from them — most notably during the reign of Elizabeth I. The unrelentingly Catholic head of the family had his dukedom removed, along with all his income. It would have been little consolation at the time, but Philip Howard was eventually made a saint, canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Philip Howard, who should have been the 5th Duke of Norfolk, died at the Tower of London in 1595, accused of being a Catholic and a Jesuit conspirator. Philip’s father, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was beheaded at the same location despite denying being a Catholic before the axe came down. Similar fates befell the 4th Duke’s father and grandfather. It became a tradition among the Howards to suffer for being Catholic.
The Howard family tells us much about British history, especially Catholic history. The Dukes of Norfolk have had demotions — promotions have been difficult as they have been at the top for so long anyway. Some aspired to be kings, while others have been successful statesmen, generals, poets, and cardinals. One was committed to an Italian insane asylum. Most clung to their Catholicism, while a few did not. Others merely talked about converting. Duke Henry, appointed by Charles II when the monarchy was restored after Cromwell’s republic, told the diarist John Evelyn that he “will go to Church and become Protestant” but couldn’t bring himself to do so. His son did instead.
It is the Howards’ abilities and persistence that helped rehabilitate Catholics as acceptable members of British society.
One small step was a concession the 12th Duke obtained in 1824, when he was no longer required to deny Transubstantiation — a vital element of Catholic belief. After that date, they could perform their duties as Earl Marshal without needing a deputy to stand in for them. Previously, Catholic dukes had to step aside at the last minute in case the Protestant public gaze should be upon them.
The 16th Duke of Norfolk, who organized Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, was prominent enough in his day to merit a cigarette card. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Some confusion remains to this day. The Dukes of Norfolk’s ancestral home is in Sussex, far from Norfolk. For 850 years they have owned the magnificent Arundel Castle, recently robbed for relics of Mary Queen of Scots. They also own 16,000 prime acres of Sussex. In contrast, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (better known as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle) own no land in that valuable county. Nor are they playing much of a part in the coronation. The Sussexes of Montecito do have a superior title though.
Part of the secret of the Dukes of Norfolk’s longevity has been keeping up with the times. When the present Duke was charged in court, he told the magistrate that he drives an elderly BMW because he likes “being simple and unpompous.” This is very different from the 16th Duke, who organized Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. When he led the England cricket team to Australia, he famously said: “Gentlemen, I wish this to be an entirely informal tour. You will merely address me as ‘Sir.’”
As is so often the case, the present 18th Duke of Norfolk is not a direct descendant of the 16th Duke. Descent in this family has often been confusing because of an absence of male heirs. If Norfolk had been in Scotland, things would have been different and a woman could have been the key organizer of King Charles III’s coronation. Since the Duke of Norfolk is not allowed to be a woman, there will probably never be a “Countess Marshal.”
Solothurn, Switzerland, Nov 26, 2018 / 12:11 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After a meeting between the superior general of the Society of St. Pius X and the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the canonically irregular priestly society said the problem in its relations with the Holy See is fundamentally doctrinal.
Fr. Davide Pagliarani, superior general of the SSPX, met for two hours Nov. 22 with Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, the CDF prefect, at the Vatican.
Cardinal Ladaria was accompanied by Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and Fr. Pagliarani by Fr. Emmanuel du Chalard.
In a Nov. 23 statement, the Society said Fr. Pagliarani had been invited by Cardinal Ladaria “to meet for the first time and together to take stock of the relations between the Holy See and the Society of Saint Pius X” since Fr. Pagliarani’s July election as superior general.
During the meeting “it was recalled that the fundamental problem is actually doctrinal … Because of this irreducible doctrinal divergence, for the past seven years no attempt to compose a draft of a doctrinal statement acceptable to both parties has succeeded. This is why the doctrinal question remains absolutely essential.”
According to the SSPX, “The Holy See says the same when it solemnly declares that no canonical status can be established for the Society until after the signing of a doctrinal document.”
“Therefore, everything impels the Society to resume theological discussions with the awareness that the Good Lord does not necessarily ask the Society to convince its interlocutors, but rather to bear unconditional witness to the faith in the sight of the Church.”
The priestly society said its future “is in the hands of Providence and the Most Blessed Virgin Mary,” and that its members “want nothing else but to serve the Church and to cooperate effectively in her regeneration … but they can choose neither the manner, nor the terms, nor the moment of what belongs to God alone.”
The SSPX was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to form priests, as a response to what he described as errors that had crept into the Church after the Second Vatican Council.
Its relations with the Holy See became particularly strained in 1988 when Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer consecrated four bishops without the permission of St. John Paul II.
The illicit episcopal consecrations resulted in the excommunication of the bishops involved. The excommunications of the surviving bishops were lifted in 2009 by Benedict XVI, and since then negotiations “to rediscover full communion with the Church” have continued between the SSPX and the Vatican.
When he remitted the excommunications, Benedict noted that “doctrinal questions obviously remain and until they are clarified the Society has no canonical status in the Church and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry.”
The biggest obstacles for the SSPX’s reconciliation have been the statements on religious liberty in Vatican II’s declaration Dignitatis humanae as well as the declaration Nostra aetate, which it claims contradict previous Catholic teaching.
There were indications in recent years of movement towards regularization of the priestly society, which has some 600 priest-members.
In March 2017, Pope Francis gave diocesan bishops or other local ordinaries the authorization to grant priests of the SSPX the ability to celebrate licitly and validly the marriages of the faithful who follow the Society’s pastoral activity.
Archbishop Pozzo spoke about interactions with the SSPX in an April 2016 interview with La Croix. The archbishop, whose commission is responsible for discussions with the SSPX, said that discussions over the last few years have led to “an important clarification” that the Second Vatican Council “can be adequately understood only in the context of the full Tradition of the Church and her constant Magisterium.”
And in September 2015, the Pope announced that the faithful would be able to validly and licitly receive absolution from priests of the SSPX during the Jubilee Year of Mercy. This ability was later extended indefinitely by Francis in his 2016 apostolic letter Misericordia et misera.
Cardinal Péter Erdő at a press conference for the International Eucharistic Congress in Budapest, June 14, 2021. / IEC 2021 Budapest
Budapest, Hungary, Jul 5, 2021 / 07:35 am (CNA).
Church leaders in Hungary and Slovakia have welcomed Pope Franc… […]
1 Comment
None of this is surprising. When I lived in France and Switzerland, Abbé Pierre was treated like a socialist rock star. The Media and the Ministries fawned over him. Most Catholics I knew just ignored him. He hardly ever spoke of Christ. His lectures (scoldings really) were of the Bergoglian type. It was obvious how full of himself the man really was.
None of this is surprising. When I lived in France and Switzerland, Abbé Pierre was treated like a socialist rock star. The Media and the Ministries fawned over him. Most Catholics I knew just ignored him. He hardly ever spoke of Christ. His lectures (scoldings really) were of the Bergoglian type. It was obvious how full of himself the man really was.