“Open letter to my friend Henri” by René Poujol, biographer of Abbé Pierre, former director of Le Pèlerin
One day I will disappoint you, that day I will need you” (Robert Desnos) Here I am!
“Here’s the priest, the bomb has exploded. I knew about its dropping since the day before. Knowing our friendship, Emmaüs officials had been kind enough to warn me. I knew right then and there that I would not comment on the news that was going to flood social networks or respond to media requests. I didn’t feel like it! I opened my computer and typed the title of this post: Open letter to my friend Henri, known as Father Pierre. I didn’t have the courage to go any further, not knowing where to start. I knew that I would have to weigh every word, every turn of phrase, every silence: out of respect for those who claim to have been victims of your actions and whom we must listen to and support; out of respect for you who are no longer here to explain yourself; out of respect for all of us who loved you. You see, already, I renounce the choice of the present so as not to constrain anyone… Since then: I have read Life and the Cross! I know! Then I can write to you.
You may be surprised by this sudden use of the familiar form, you who used it so much towards me as you often did, even beyond those close to you. Until the day of your death I always chose “vous”. Out of respect. Don’t imagine that respect has disappeared. No! Simply these revelations still make you fall from your pedestal and perhaps make us even closer. I am angry, Father. Angry with you. I feel more betrayed than deceived, having never questioned you on these issues. How could I have dared to do so?
Remember: on April 11, 2006, I came to see you in Alfortville. A man was threatening to reveal to the media that he was your biological son. At my request, you agreed to tell me “your truth.” I promised to keep this interview secret as long as he did not act. My desire was to be able to give you the floor one day if these revelations came to light after your death. Which was the case.
You are no longer here, Father! And I feel tired. In three years I learned of the suicide of a priest friend, Adrien, who brightened my adolescence and blessed my marriage. He had been in prison for sexual assault on young girls and ended his life as a tramp, wandering on the banks of the Garonne, in Toulouse, before ending his life. Who supported him? I discovered the accusations brought against my friend Brother André Gouzes, already plunged into deep Alzheimer’s, then learned that the leaders of the Dominican Order were saying here and there that the file “was empty” without ever speaking publicly on the subject, preferring to take refuge behind the silence of the Public Prosecutor of Rodez. I discovered the old sacrilegious sacramental practices of my bishop Michel Santier, whom I trusted, and I shudder at the rumors of the possible conclusions of a new canonical trial.
And you, today!
The day I copied this sentence from Robert Desnos into my reading notebooks, I never imagined I would have to use it in such a way. Listen to yourself speak, Father: “One day, I will disappoint you, and that day, I will need you.” I try to be there!
In the article that La Vie is dedicating to you this week, I read: “The whole point of the current period is the liberation of speech, in society as well as in the Catholic Church. People no longer die with their secrets: the times have changed.” All this is probably true, but that last sentence terrifies me! I think back to Malraux: “For the most part, man East what it hides: a miserable little pile of secrets.” Can a free society survive the collective vertigo of transparency? Who among us can feel safe?
On July 6, during the Grignan Correspondence Festival, Boris Cyrulnik observed that in our modern societies the new “heroes” (theme of the meetings) were now the victims. Like Christ, some will say! So I wonder: how can we respect the suffering of the victims and their legitimate rights, without destroying the work of their aggressors who cannot be reduced to the guilty, sometimes criminal, acts that they may have committed? Nothing can make what was, beautiful, good and sometimes great, not have been. What will become of us if, in order to debunk idols, all idols, we come to deny those who made us grow?
But you know, as I do, in the Bible, this terrible prophecy of Ezekiel (18:24): “If the righteous renounces his righteousness and commits evil, imitating all the abominations that the wicked commits, will he live? No longer will all the righteousness that he has practiced be remembered, but because of the unfaithfulness of which he was guilty and the sin that he has committed, he will die.”
I cannot forget what I owe to Adrien Terris who enlightened my teenage years with his confidence. Pierre Soulage said of the writer Joseph Delteil, in similar circumstances: “He believed in me so much that I ended up believing in him myself.”
I cannot forget having lived at the Abbey of Sylvanès, thanks to the Choral Liturgy of the People of God by Brother André Gouzes, the Easter Triduum where I felt penetrated by the mystery of God while having a true experience of the communion of saints. I still have goosebumps.
I cannot forget that Michel Santier was also the man behind the redeployment of our Créteil cathedral, of our diocesan synod, of dialogue with our Protestant, Jewish and Muslim brothers.
I cannot forget about you, Father, those moments when at the end of the day you suggested that I “stay” because you were going to celebrate the Eucharist on a corner of the table. I cannot forget this conviction that made you live, that in every man – even the worst bastard – is a treasure, found almost word for word in the mouth of Robert Badinter explaining his vocation as a lawyer. I cannot forget what you made me understand about the radical nature of the fight for justice replacing too much charitable sentimentality. Because if, as you had discovered, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” is written in the present tense, unlike most of the Beatitudes written in the future tense, it is because the Kingdom is already here, but that only those who fiercely lead this fight can claim it.
I know, Father: some will read in my words a guilty indulgence towards you. Because I was and remain your friend. No! I have no indulgence. But I know the weight of evil from which none of us is free and that it is sinful – in the etymological sense of being the wrong target – to let oneself be excessively fascinated by it. I read that the Church of France expressed its shame and compassion for the victims. It knows like no one else how to be ashamed of the turpitudes of others. Without ever really questioning itself – particularly in its approach to sexuality and ecclesiastical celibacy – because it is a question – it says – of understanding God’s plan for humanity.
Father, how many times have you said to me: “When one has conquered the fear of poverty, suffering and death, then, and only then, does one become a free man.” You have lived in poverty. I can testify to that. Now you are in the most extreme poverty, stripped of that ultimate pride that with our consent you took with you to the grave. Here you are naked. Definitively naked?
But what a waste, Father, what a waste.
- Jean-Christophe d’Escaut, The Abbot Father. Editions Alphée 2007, 336 p.
- In fact, this formulation appears in the letter that Abbé Pierre gave me that day and which included, signed by him, the essential points of our conversation.
Open letter published on René Poujol’s blog