People: Abbé Pierre

8/5/1912 - 1/22/2007

An extraordinary beautiful life, driven by love…

“Le plus grand échec est de ne vas avoir le courage d’oser.” “The biggest failure is not to have the courage to dare.” Abbé Pierre

I learned of this brilliant human being when a French friend of mine spoke of him as we were walking in the vines. It left me hungry to know more….

The story of Abbé Pierre is arresting. It is beautiful. It is full to overflowing. How wonderful is it that a man such as this one has come to pass through our weary world? He was all the possible goodness you can squeeze into one human being and then some. A man totally dedicated to the poor, homeless and those seeking refuge from war, hate and persecution. A man selfless and kind, devoted to a life of simplicity and sacrifice. His was a life bequeathed to giving and easing the miseries of others. Can you imagine a world where this would be our true north, our guiding force? If only mankind would band together as one, inoculated with his innate and selfless love for humanity, seething to make a difference. What a different world this could be. A lofty and beautiful thought, but just a dream…

Abbé Pierre was voted the most popular French person 17 years in a row and in 2005 voted the 3rd greatest French person of all time.

Abbé Pierre, we were so blessed to have you. Yours was an extraordinary life fully lived. Merci pour tout.

The scoop

Abbé Pierre, was born on August 5th, 1912, in Lyon, France, to a wealthy Catholic family. He was one of 8 children and his birth name was Henri Joseph Groués. He possessed an innate pull toward a religious life very early on, and after participating in a pilgrimage to Rome at the age of 16, was hooked to live life of selflessness. So at about the age of 18, he began his journey to live a religious life and joined the Capuchin Order of the Franciscans. He became a monk and took the name Brother Phillipe. He rejected his inheritance and his family wealth, going forward to donating all his material possessions to the poor and homeless. He spent about 7 years at the monastery in Crest-Drôme, France, which he left in 1938 due to failing health and soon after, he was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.

In 1939, a few months before the invasion of Poland, he was assigned to the Cathédral Notre-Dame in Grenoble, France. Shortly after his move to Grenoble and the start of WW ll, he became active with the French Resistance. He developed false identities, of which one was Abbé Pierre, to insulate himself from discovery by the Gestapo and police of the Vichy regime. He fought Nazi oppression by actively working to protect the Jewish children whose parents had been arrested. He continued on to help Jews and all others at risk of persecution to escape across the border to Switzerland. (Of note, Jacques de Gaulle, the younger brother of Charles de Gaulle, and his wife, Jeanne were among the many Abbé Pierre helped to escape from France to Switzerland, away from the reach of the Gestapo.) In this effort to move people across the Swiss border, he established and led a group of maquis (local group of partisans) in the Vercors Plateau and Chartreuse Mountains.

Abbé Pierre was widely responsible for the efforts made to protect French citizens from serving in the Nazi program “Service de travail obligatoire” (STO), a German program of mandatory enlistment. This encompassed deportation of French workers to hard labor in German work camps, where they were used in the work force to support the German war effort. To thwart this program, he created a refugee camp in Grenoble for French citizens who resisted enlistment in the STO. He was eventually arrested in 1944 near the end of the war, and when released fled to Spain for a short period of time. Upon his return to France, he became involved in French politics and in1945 he was elected to the National Assembly. In 1949 he founded Emmaus, a secular charitable foundation charged with securing basic shelter, clothing, food and community for the poor, homeless and those seeking refuge from persecution. He bought an old run down neglected house located about 11 km from the eastern suburbs of Paris (Neuilly-Plaisance, France). It was in this house and at that moment, the first Emmaus community was born.

Abbé Pierre left politics in 1951 to return to his beloved beginnings as a priest of and for the people. He continued his work to cultivate a community where the poor and homeless could live safely, and contribute towards a thriving working community. This is at the very heart of the Emmaus movement and his unwavering purpose; to shelter, feed and protect the homeless of France.

The Emmaus movement remained in tact and thriving, but struggling. Then in 1954 the movement began to gain momentum with a significant influx of financial support from the French citizens at large. This happened after an especially harsh, cold winter when many homeless died of exposure to the cold and starvation. This was the moment when Pierre made his famous heart rendering appeal to the French public via radio and the Press. His speech was successful in bringing the harsh, ugly dark realities into the light, igniting a fire of support for the French homeless and the Emmaus movement. Here is an excerpt of that famous speech that became known far and wide as;

“Abbé Pierre’s call for an uprising of kindness”

“My friends, come and help… A woman froze to death tonight, on the pavement of Sebastopol Boulevard, clutching the eviction notice that had made her homeless the day before … Every night, more than 2,000people endure the cold, without food, without bread, more than one almost naked. To face this horror, emergency lodgings are not enough. Hear me; we have to act now and open aid centers for the homeless. There is no time to waste.” - Abbé Pierre

Thanks to Abbé Pierre, Emmaus continues today as a secular, not for profit charity maintaining its primary mission to fight homelessness and poverty and has many other charitable services. Today there are ~400 Emmaus organizations in 44 countries all due to the vision of this one extraordinary man.

Abbé Pierre steadily remained the spokesman for the homeless and continuously went on to champion charitable endeavors throughout his lifetime. His guiding principle of love for all, but especially for those shattered by life’s miseries and misfortunes was unwavering.

I think it is important to note that Abbé Pierre, a deeply religious man, was not always closely aligned with the Vatican teaching and doctrines. His socialist leaning beliefs put him at odds with the church and he often criticized the Vatican for its opulent spending and lavish lifestyle. He did not maintain celibacy, he believed that women should be allowed to be ordained, that clergy should be allowed to be married, that same sex couples should be able to adopt, and that contraception should be supported. His views on Catholic dogma can be read in detail in his final book, “Why, Oh Why, My God?”.

Abbé Pierre died of a lung infection at Val de Grâce military hospital in Paris on January 22nd, 2007 at the age of 94.