Slew of new abuse accusations against French charity icon Abbe Pierre
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00:00The secrets were covered up until the end of the abbot's life in France, where he left
00:05behind a legacy as a friend to the poor.
00:08Yet archived correspondence, published in a Radio France investigation, show that the
00:12church knew that Abbé Pierre was accused of sexual abuse as far back as the 1950s.
00:19In particular, during a number of month-long tours in the US and Canada.
00:23In 1955, a student who'd helped organise Abbé Pierre's stay in the United States wrote,
00:28I saw so many things during the trip, ways in which the father acted as an individual.
00:34The abbot later wrote him a threatening letter.
00:36You promised to stop meddling.
00:38Know that not one recurrence will go unanswered, and if necessary my answers will be brutal,
00:43surgical.
00:44Four years later in Quebec, the police was called following complaints against the priest
00:49that the affair was hushed up.
00:51On his return to France, Abbé Pierre defended himself in a letter to a cardinal.
00:56At the end of 1957, the church sent the priest to a hospital in Switzerland, officially for
01:01a hernia, but people close to him say it was over concerns of a sex scandal.
01:06It would take decades until the first allegations came to light, in July, shocking France.
01:12Further testimonies gathered by the charities founded by Abbé Pierre detail more allegations,
01:17including repeated sexual contact with a vulnerable person and sexual contact with a child.
01:24Abbé Pierre was a priest who could improve his image, because he was a priest of the
01:28voiceless, the priest of the homeless, and so we wonder if that isn't also why the church
01:33took such precautions with him.
01:35In any case, it's clear that at the time, these matters were not a subject of discussion.
01:41Radio France also interviewed a documentary maker, who witnessed a crude conversation
01:46between the abbot and a young woman.
01:51After a few seconds of conversation, Abbé Pierre asked the woman if she ever thought
01:54of him.
01:55The young woman replied, a little embarrassed, yes, occasionally she would think of him.
02:00He then responded, do you touch yourself when you think of me?
02:04Seventeen years after his death, the latest claims have prompted the Abbé Pierre Foundation
02:09to announce it will change its name.
02:11A memorial to the priest will also be permanently closed.
02:15Reiterating their total support for the victims, these charities have also set up an independent
02:20committee to explain the failings that allowed Abbé Pierre to act as he did for more than
02:2450 years.