Berliner Tageblatt - Book claims Vatican knew French charity icon accused of abuse from 1950s

The Catholic cleric -- who founded the Emmaus charity which is now present in over 40 countries -- was widely praised for his work for the poverty-stricken and homeless when he died in 2007 aged 94.

But in recent months more than 30 people have alleged he committed sexual abuse against them, some when they were children, between 1950 and 2000, shattering his saintly image.

Prosecutors in February said no criminal investigation could be opened because the statute of limitations had expired in all cases.

Journalists Laetitia Cherel and Marie-France Etchegoin in their book "Abbe Pierre, the Making of a Saint" allege the Vatican knew about some of the accusations for decades.

"As early as autumn 1955, not only did top French clergy know about the dark side and danger in Abbe Pierre, but so did the Holy See," they wrote.

In their book they report that the Vatican requested the bishop of Versailles launch "a judicial procedure", but none was begun.

The journalists said they gained access to declassified Vatican archives that showed that a priest had written to the Holy See in October 1955 to say Abbe Pierre had done "immoral things" while visiting the United States.

- 'Problematic' behaviour -

The archives also included the minutes of a 1957 meeting about Abbe Pierre, born Henri Groues in 1912.

The 10-page document noted that two US and Canadian cardinals had alerted the Vatican in 1955, and detailed allegations against the French religious figure from 1955 to 1957, the journalists said.

The Vatican asked its ambassador to France at the time to keep an eye on Abbe Pierre, also suspecting him of having ties to Communism, it showed.

Archives of the French church, consulted after the scandal first broke last year, show French religious leaders remained quiet about what they termed Abbe Pierre's "problematic" behaviour.

Pope Francis said in September that the Vatican had known about the accusations against the French charity figure, at least since his death in 2007.

The Conference of Bishops of France at the time asked the Vatican to examine its archives to see what was known before then, but there has been no follow-up so far.

The 1939-1958 Vatican archives that the journalists consulted were declassified in 2020 to allow historians to examine the Holy See's attitude to Nazi Germany, the book's authors said.

It contained a blue file titled Abbe Pierre, which one of them said the Vatican possibly did not realise was included.

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J.Fankhauser--BTB