It is no longer necessary to prove that the Church has protected predatory priests, even in contemporary times. From the Preynat case (a priest from Lyon convicted of sexual assault of minors in 2020) to that of the Philippe brothers (two Dominican religious accused of multiple sexual violence), passing through the revelations of the independent commission on sexual abuse in the Church, In 2021, there are no shortage of examples of the silence maintained by the Catholic Church regarding sexual crimes committed by its clerics. But how did this omerta actually unfold? With what actors? What methods? The archives of the French episcopate on Henri Grouès, known as Abbé Pierre, ordained a priest in 1938, lift part of the veil surrounding these issues.
Following the publication by Emmaus, on September 6, of a second report that accuses it of sexual violence (24 women, in total, testify to rape or assault, including three minors at the time of the events), the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) opened its national archive on September 13, located in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine). He made available to journalists and researchers an archive, prepared by his teams of archivists, of documents – letters, for the most part – relating to the priest, who died in 2007. Two weeks later, on Thursday, September 26, it was the priest’s turn. diocese of Grenoble, where Henri Grouès had been incardinated as a priest, to open their own: the archives of the diocese, but also those attached to the bishop; The distinction is important, since documents relating to the sexual affairs of clerics fall into the second category.
These different documents, consulted by the world, They illustrate the progressive awareness on the part of the ecclesial hierarchy of the need to supervise this priest who is not exactly like the others. Since 1942, when Henri Grouès served as an assistant (in charge, among other things, of religious education) at the orphanage of La Côte-Saint-André, in Isère, a The archpriest, then responsible for his supervision, complained to the bishop of Grenoble, Alexandre Caillot, about his character. “elusive and beyond all control”. “His zeal, his piety and his virtue are indisputable but marred by a lack of common sense, by recklessness and by great vanity, because he always believes himself called to extraordinary and great things. (…) “You need to leave as soon as possible.”writes the priest, who threatens to resign if Henri Grouès remains in office, in a letter preserved in Grenoble.
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