In the interview of the newspaper "La Croix" from the weekend, the church leadership attests to her ongoing failure in the desire to sweep the scandals under the carpet and keep damage away from the church.
Your archive study "I must entrust you with a very great secret" (J'ai un très grand secret à vous dire) also deals with childhood traumas of the priest, who grew up with the real name Henri Grouès in a strictly Catholic family in Lyon and apparently had to suffer from sexual assault even during school.
"Relation to sexuality marked by suffering"
"As a child, his relationship with sexuality was marked by suffering and guilt," says Brodiez-Dolino. A traumatizing involvement of his aunt in a murder case is also dealt with in the book.
The historian speaks for the years after his adolescence of a "progressive increase in perversions."
When France was hit by a cold wave in the winter of 1953/54, Abbé Pierre triggered a nationwide and international wave of aid with aid appeals for the homeless on the radio.
According to Brodiez-Dolino, the priest then became sexually assaulted several times during a successful trip to the USA.
Even the highest church authorities, however, were primarily interested in not letting the matter become public.
The historian literally: "In his file in the Vatican, three elements appear, which are equally important in the eyes of Rome: his financial lightness -- he had entrusted the 1954 money to a notorious fraud -- his communist attitude and his sexual aberrations. Reason enough to worry the hierarchy."
According to her account, 1957 was a pivotal year. The Holy Office, the predecessor of today's Vatican religious authority, closed its file in the spring.
But from autumn, Abbé Pierre was treated for several months in a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland at the instigation of the church leadership and the community he founded Emmaus.
Church archives show that there must have been sexual assaults or even rapes of minors somewhere in the autumn, according to the historian. She now also considers a involvement of the priest in a nationwide sex scandal quite likely, which, however, only flew up in January 1959.
The "Affaire des Ballets roses", in which underage girls with drugs are substantively and after choreographed dances then gentlemen of the higher society are fed, cost, among other things, the then parliament speaker André Le Troquer the office.
In a summary document from 1964, the Paris Auxiliary Bishop and later Cardinal Pierre Veuillot writes about the actions of Abbé Pierre: "Young girls are thus drawn for their entire lives."
Strict controls revoked
After the Swiss therapy, according to his biographer Brodiez-Dolino, Abbé Pierre realized that "he wanted to be removed from Emmaus "; this had made him "angry and incredibly energetic again".
But he was able to escape all the discreet attempts of the French bishops to keep him under control as much as possible – medical care, travel restrictions, constant surveillance – every time.
Until 1964, according to the historian’s finding, Abbé Pierre was still under strict control; after that, the conditions had gradually eased with the change of those responsible – until he had literally disappeared from the church’s field of vision in 1972.
When he returned to the spotlight in the 1980s, the Church no longer had any influence on him, Brodiez-Dolino reports: "He is too well-known and now exclusively embodies 'Emmaus'."
Until the allegations became known a few years ago, Abbé Pierre was regularly one of the "most popular French people of all time," according to surveys.
An independent commission of inquiry into its acts of violence (Cevap) is due to present its conclusions in 2027.