Background

Abbé Pierre was born Henri Marie Joseph Grouès on August 5, 1912, in Lyon, Rhone-Alpes, France to the wealthy Catholic family of Antoine Grouès and Eulalie Perra. He was the fifth of eight children. His father was a prosperous silk trader with a strong social conscience.

Henri was spiritually inclined from an early age and was just 12 when he decided to become a missionary. As a young boy, he accompanied his father to an Order circle, the brotherhood of the "Hospitaliers veilleurs," where he learned the significance of serving the poor.

He realized his true calling at the age of 16 and decided to join a monastic order. However, he had to wait for some time before he could fulfill this ambition as he was considered too young at 16.

Education

Abbe Pierre studied at the Jesuit school Lycée Saint-Marc in Lyon.

Career

In 1931, Abbé Pierre entered Capuchin Order, the principal offshoot of the Franciscan monastery of Notre Dame du Bon Secours at St Etienne. He renounced all his wealth and inheritances and offered all of his materialistic possessions to charities. Thus he left behind his identity as Henri Marie Joseph Grouès and took the name of Brother Philippe.

Brother Philippe entered the monastery of Crest in 1932. He lived there for seven years but had to leave in 1939 due to ill health. Now he took up the position of chaplain in the hospital of La Mure and later, at an orphanage in the Côte-Saint-André.

Meanwhile, in 1938, he was ordained as a Roman Catholic Priest. Shortly afterward, he was made the curate of Grenoble's cathedral in April 1939.

Brother Philippe was enlisted as a non-commissioned officer (NCO) in the train transport corps on the outbreak of the Second World War. He was sent to Alsace for training but he became ill from pleurisy there. He became the vicar of Grenoble cathedral following the fall of France. In this position, he was actively involved in the French Resistance and helped Jews and politically persecuted escape to Switzerland. Jacques de Gaulle (the brother of Charles de Gaulle) and his wife were among the ones he helped escape.

In 1943, Brother Philippe began writing for the clandestine newspaper 'Union patriotique indépendante' under the pseudonym "Georges." During this time he operated using several pseudonyms as he needed to protect his identity from the Gestapo. "Abbé Pierre" was one of the several identities he created for himself.

In the early 1940s, Abbé Pierre gained the reputation of being a major character and symbol of the French Resistance. He assisted people in avoiding being forcefully taken into the Service du travail obligatoire (STO) established by the Nazis. He established a refugee camp for the ones who resisted the STO in Grenoble. His resistance work earned him the ire of the Nazis for which he even had to face arrests.

Moved by the plight of the homeless people in Paris, Abbé Pierre founded Emmaus in 1949. It was a solidarity movement aimed at providing accommodation to the homeless and aid to the poverty-stricken.

Abbé Pierre bought a property alongside a railway line at Neuilly-sur-Marne with the aim of cultivating a working community where the poor people could live and contribute towards community-building. By now he had taken in a few inmates, and together with them, he worked hard to build shelters with proper health and infrastructural facilities.

The initial years invested in establishing Emmaus were a struggle. However, the unusually harsh winter of 1954 changed the situation. Several homeless people died and Abbé Pierre appealed to the middle-class and wealthy citizens to come forward and donate to help the homeless.

Abbé Pierre appealed through the newspapers and radio to reach a large audience and his appeal had a huge impact. The French people responded generously and the Emmaus movement started gaining momentum.

Soon the movement started spreading to other countries as well and developed into an international charity with Emmaus communities taking roots across Europe, the Far East, and South America. As of 2014, there were 336 Emmaus organizations in 37 countries.

Achievements

• The Emmaus movement, which Abbé Pierre founded in 1949 with a single centre for the homeless in a Paris suburb, held its first World Assembly in 1969, and by 2007 Emmaus International had more than 100 communities in France as well as in some 40 other countries. Abbé Pierre was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1945 for his World War II work in the French underground, was made an officer of the Legion of Honour in 2001 (after having refused the award for years), and in 2004 was advanced to the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, France's highest distinction.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Bernard Chevallier interroge l'Abbé Pierre 1979
  • Cent poèmes contre la misère 1988
  • Dieu et les hommes 1993
  • Testament... 1994
  • Une terre et des hommes 1994
  • Absolu: Dialogue Abbé Pierre, Albert Jacquard 1994
  • Le Bal des Exclus: Et autres drames sacrés 1996
  • Mémoires d'un croyant 1997
  • Fraternité 1999
  • Paroles 1999
  • C'est quoi la mort? 1999
  • La Planète des pauvres. Le tour du monde à vélo des communautés Emmaüs 2001
  • Confessions 2002
  • Je voulais être marin missionnaire ou brigand 2002
  • L'Abbe Pierre parle aux jeunes 2004
  • Mon Dieu... pourquoi? 2005
  • Servir: Paroles de vie 2006

Religion

Abbé Pierre was a Roman Catholic clergyman and a strong believer from a young age. At the same time, he was also appreciated for his strong criticism of the Catholic Church's conservatism. He spoke in favor of using condoms and was supportive of homosexual rights. He didn’t support enforced chastity for priests.

Politics

After the war ended Abbé Pierre was elected a deputy for Meurthe-et-Moselle department in both National Constituent Assemblies in 1945-1946. Even though he was independent, he was close to the Popular Republican Movement (MRP), mainly consisting of Christian democratic members of the Resistance.

In 1947, Abbé Pierre became vice-president of the Confédération Mondiale, a universal federalist movement. However, with time he became disillusioned with the political parties and quit his political career. Even though he did not get involved in representative politics in the years to come, he never shied away from sharing his views on political stances.

Abbé Pierre also became a strong spokesperson against the nationalistic view of Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Views

In the post-war period, Abbé Pierre became a member of France’s national assembly but felt he was able to achieve very little. Therefore, he decided to leave and set up a charity Emmanus in 1949. His charity was aimed at helping the homeless to find shelter. However, he viewed the traditional view of charity with almost contempt. He felt the most effective charity was when others were helped to help themselves. If charity was just a condescending gift from the rich to the poor, he felt it would be of little benefit other than to appease the consciousness of the rich. The British based version of Emmanus says its philosophy is to "Giving people a bed and a reason to get out of it."

Abbé Pierre's charity also had a left-wing association as he felt the resources from the charity should come from the unneeded surpluses of the rich. He was later criticized for his politics, in reply he said: "[I] knew nothing of left and right, the only extreme I support is upwards towards heaven."

Abbé Pierre became the unofficial spokesman for the homeless. He appeared to transcend religious and political differences in the country and was appreciated by a variety of sources. He was admired by Catholics, for presenting the best aspects of a living Catholic faith.

Despite his wartime record of saving Jewish people from the Nazis and his ardent opposition to the far right in France, Abbé Pierre was dragged into controversy for his support of his longtime friend Roger Garaudy. Roger had written a book claiming Israel had exaggerated the extent of the holocaust and had used it as an excuse for mistreating the Palestinians. However, despite this episode, his reputation was generally undiminished because of his sincere and fervent belief in the equality of men.

Membership

Abbé Pierre was a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in France in 1932-1939.

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  Order of Friars Minor Capuchin , France

  1932 - 1939

Personality

For many years Abbé Pierre was in the public eye, but he didn’t like the inherent fame that was associated with his role. For several years he dropped out of the public limelight, spending time in semi-retreat. Abbé Pierre was lucky enough to survive several accidents including an emergency plane landing in 1950 and a shipwreck in 1963. He miraculously escaped with minor injuries both times.

Physical Characteristics: Abbé Pierre lived a long and active life despite being plagued by lung problems in his youth. He died on 22 January 2007 following a lung infection, at the age of 94.

Connections

Being a Catholic clergyman Abbé Pierre didn't marry and had no children.

Father:

Antoine Grouès

Mother:

Eulalie Perra

aunt:

Héra Mirtel

References

• Abbé Pierre
  2019
• Abbé Pierre and the Ragpickers of Emmaus
  1955
• Le secret spirituel de l'abbé Pierre
  2014
• L'Abbé Pierre
  1999
• L'Abbé Pierre - L'insurgé de Dieu
  2012