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Accusations against Abbé Pierre: a scandal hushed up by the Church?
While victims have reported having been sexually assaulted by Abbé Pierre, new documents reveal that these assaults began in the 1950s.
(France 2)
While victims have reported having been sexually assaulted by Abbé Pierre, new documents reveal that these assaults began in the 1950s.
According to archival documents published by the investigation unit of Radio France, Abbé Pierre was at the heart of several sexual assault scandals from the 1950s, particularly in the United States and Canada. A student, witness to multiple inappropriate gestures, wrote to a close friend of the abbé. In 1959, in Quebec, the police reportedly intervened following complaints, but the affair did not become public.
Sent back to France, Abbé Pierre defends himself in a letter to a cardinal. “Nothing like this kind of misery has ever existed”he wrote. At the end of 1957, the Church sent him to a hospital in Switzerland, officially for a hernia problem, unofficially for fear of sexual scandal, say relatives. These sexual assaults are said to have lasted more than fifty years. In an Emmaüs center, many say they are stunned by these new revelations. Emmaüs indicated on Monday, September 9, that it was considering compensating the victims.
