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Report
Slew of new abuse accusations against French charity icon Abbe Pierre
FRANCE 24 English
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9/9/2024
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Transcript
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00:00
The secrets were covered up until the end of the abbot's life in France, where he left
00:05
behind a legacy as a friend to the poor.
00:08
Yet archived correspondence, published in a Radio France investigation, show that the
00:12
church knew that Abbé Pierre was accused of sexual abuse as far back as the 1950s.
00:19
In particular, during a number of month-long tours in the US and Canada.
00:23
In 1955, a student who'd helped organise Abbé Pierre's stay in the United States wrote,
00:28
I saw so many things during the trip, ways in which the father acted as an individual.
00:34
The abbot later wrote him a threatening letter.
00:36
You promised to stop meddling.
00:38
Know that not one recurrence will go unanswered, and if necessary my answers will be brutal,
00:43
surgical.
00:44
Four years later in Quebec, the police was called following complaints against the priest
00:49
that the affair was hushed up.
00:51
On his return to France, Abbé Pierre defended himself in a letter to a cardinal.
00:56
At the end of 1957, the church sent the priest to a hospital in Switzerland, officially for
01:01
a hernia, but people close to him say it was over concerns of a sex scandal.
01:06
It would take decades until the first allegations came to light, in July, shocking France.
01:12
Further testimonies gathered by the charities founded by Abbé Pierre detail more allegations,
01:17
including repeated sexual contact with a vulnerable person and sexual contact with a child.
01:24
Abbé Pierre was a priest who could improve his image, because he was a priest of the
01:28
voiceless, the priest of the homeless, and so we wonder if that isn't also why the church
01:33
took such precautions with him.
01:35
In any case, it's clear that at the time, these matters were not a subject of discussion.
01:41
Radio France also interviewed a documentary maker, who witnessed a crude conversation
01:46
between the abbot and a young woman.
01:51
After a few seconds of conversation, Abbé Pierre asked the woman if she ever thought
01:54
of him.
01:55
The young woman replied, a little embarrassed, yes, occasionally she would think of him.
02:00
He then responded, do you touch yourself when you think of me?
02:04
Seventeen years after his death, the latest claims have prompted the Abbé Pierre Foundation
02:09
to announce it will change its name.
02:11
A memorial to the priest will also be permanently closed.
02:15
Reiterating their total support for the victims, these charities have also set up an independent
02:20
committee to explain the failings that allowed Abbé Pierre to act as he did for more than
02:24
50 years.
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