The Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) said their records on Abbé Pierre, the founder of the charity Emmaüs, who died in 2007, would be made available without the usual delay of 75 years from the time of death.
Seven women accused Abbé Pierre of sexual assault in July, and Emmaüs said since then it had received a further 17 testimonies including “very serious” accusations of sexual abuse on a number of victims, including at least one who was a child at the time of the alleged offences.
In a joint statement, the Abbé Pierre Foundation, Emmaüs France and Emmaüs International, said: “The violence and extreme seriousness of certain of these new testimonies have come as a further shock at the heart of our organisations.” They reiterated their “total support for the victims”, praising the “courage” of those who had come forward. “We believe them and we stand by them,” it said.
Until last year, Abbé Pierre was a revered national icon considered the epitome of Christian self-sacrifice for his humanitarian work. However, church archives show it was aware of concerns over his behaviour from as far back as the 1950s.
Emmaüs, which has 425 branches in 41 countries, is acting to distance itself from its founder and will vote on removing the priest’s name from its logo at a special general assembly in December. The Abbé Pierre Foundation is to change its name, and the Abbé Pierre memorial centre in Esteville, Normandy, where the late priest resided for many years, will close permanently.
Adrien Chaboche, the head of Emmaüs International, said: “Our movement is shocked by these revelations that have brought about a before and an after in our history.”
Speaking to RFI radio, Chaboche added: “Each branch will have to reflect on how much space to give to Abbé Pierre. We’re not giving instructions but we encourage people to be responsible in the choices they make since Abbé Pierre’s image is now also that of a sexual predator.”
Emmaüs had hired an independent consultancy called Egaé to look into the accusations and gather further statements from alleged victims. The allegations date from the 1950s to 2005 and are reported to have taken place in France, Switzerland, the US and Morocco.
The Egaé report, published on 17 July, claimed there had been “repeated sexual contact with a vulnerable person”, “repeated penetrative sex acts” and “sexual contact with a child”.
One woman claimed she had been “forced to watch Abbé Pierre masturbate and to perform oral sex in a Paris apartment” in 1989. Another claim relates to a woman who said the priest kissed her “with his tongue” and touched her chest in the mid 1970s, when she was nine years old.
Investigators said there were more accounts of alleged abuse but it had excluded those made anonymously or where those making the claim were reluctant to give full details.
Abbé Pierre was born Henri-Antoine Grouès in 1912 and was a Capuchin monk before being ordained in 1938. He joined the French Resistance during the the second world war and became an MP when the conflict ended.
The CEF has expressed its “pain” and “shame” over the accusations and announced full cooperation in the investigation. The church has been shaken by a 2021 report by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church, which identified more than 3,000 cases of sexual abuse by priests since 1950.
Chaboche told RFI Emmaüs was exploring how to compensate victims. “It’s a long, difficult process,” he said.