our editorial after the new revelations about Abbé Pierre

We loved you, Father. We? All your compatriots, not just the Catholics. We loved your roughness, your stubbornness in defending the abandoned, the battered, the very people who welcome us, proud to have found a roof and a job, when we go to Emmaus. This fight that you launched has not lost an inch of its relevance.

We saw you grow old, and with your gaze a little lost behind your old-fashioned glasses, we still loved you. Because we needed prophets in a disoriented, self-centered and yet generous era. And then the suspicion of sexual assault arrived, and with it – we must welcome this progress – the establishment of an independent investigation firm mandated by the Emmaüs movement and the Abbé-Pierre Foundation. A movement whose call for testimonies allowed, after the first revelations made public on July 17, for others, very serious, to emerge on September 6.

Certainly, it is overwhelming to overwhelm a deceased person. Our readers, hurt, have underlined the predictable excesses of a post-mortem media trial. Certainly, from where you are, you alone, and the One to whom you had dedicated your life, are accountable for the mystery of who you were. Your sin does not belong to us. But to remain silent because we are fed up – too many affairs, sordid to the point of nausea – would be unworthy of the mission of a Catholic weekly news magazine. To turn away from the drama experienced by the victims would be to add evil to evil.

In mourning the image we had of you, we also say goodbye to the facilities of a weekly that, more than others, probably, canonized you before your time. We dedicated our cover of February 14, 1954, to you. Others followed. And what should we think of the ecclesiastical institution, which is taking the measure of the facts so late? It would have received the first warnings about you in 1955. All those who knew and kept quiet will not be able to absolve themselves of this silence.

So perhaps it is useful, Father, for our Christian communities to renounce once and for all the misplaced fascination with extraordinary personalities. No, faith does not protect against anything. But yes, it also knows that in weakness recognized, assumed, it can draw its strength. It is to this lucid holiness that we are called. Because the time for complaint is no longer. We must listen to the suffering, act alongside them. And keep the flame of hope alive.