Abbé Pierre

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Abbé Pierre (real name Henri Antoine Grouès ; born August 5, 1912 in Lyon , † January 22, 2007 in Paris ) was a French Catholic priest and Capuchin who founded the charity Emmaus ( French Emmaüs ). His pseudonym Abbé Pierre comes from the time of the Second World War , when he was a member of the French Resistance and helped Jewish refugees. He led the polls for the most popular Frenchman for 30 years until he was no longer on this list in 2005 at his own request.

Abbé Pierre (2005)

life and work

Abbé Pierre came from a wealthy entrepreneurial family. He was the fifth child of a wealthy silk manufacturer and attended a Jesuit- run high school in Lyon . It was in this environment that he decided to become a priest. His father was philanthropic for the poor. The child Henri saw his wealthy father cut the hair of the homeless and buy food and clothing for those in need. A visit to Assisi strengthened his choice of priestly profession . At the age of 20 he entered the Capuchin Order , distributed the father's inheritance to the poor and was ordained a priest in 1938 . Since he soon fell ill with tuberculosis , he had to give up the hard life of a monk . Between 1942 and 1945 he helped Jews and the politically persecuted to flee to Switzerland by forging papers and resisting the German occupation army . In 1949 he founded the Emmaus organization in Neuilly-sur-Seine , which helps poor and homeless people. In the same year he bought a house on the outskirts of Paris that he made available to homeless families.

After the liberation of France , Abbé Pierre was a member of the Constituent Assembly. From 1946 to 1951 he represented the Meurthe-et-Moselle department as an independent member of the first National Assembly . Until 1950 he sat in the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Mouvement républicain populaire (MRP).

In the winter of 1953/54 France was hit by a cold spell in which many people died. Abbé Pierre appealed on Radio Luxembourg to all French people to help the homeless in the country. He triggered a nationwide wave of aid; thousands of people, including personalities such as Charles de Gaulle and Charlie Chaplin , donated and helped. In addition, a government housing program worth billions of francs was launched . His initiative also found its way into French school books.

Abbé Pierre died on January 22, 2007 in the Val-de-Grâce hospital in Paris at the age of 94 of complications from pneumonia . Thousands of mourners, including almost the entire government cabinet and high-ranking clergymen of other religions, said goodbye to him with a national memorial service in the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris . Abbé Pierre found his final resting place in the Norman parish of Esteville .

Emmaus

The Emmaus charity is now represented as a foundation in 43 other countries. It employs 1,400 people and 10,000 volunteers. People who can no longer find employment in the labor market find a job that is paid with the minimum wage in the repair and resale of defective household items. Those in need receive the furnishings free of charge. Emmaus's humanitarian commitment ranges from building schools in Africa to fighting for the rights of street children in South America to resisting trafficking in women in Bosnia . The trade in junk goods is given as 118 million euros in annual own sales. In addition, there are donations and subsidies of at least the same amount.

Abbé Pierre could no longer see the completion of his life's work: the adoption of a legislative initiative by the French parliament, which was supposed to anchor everyone's right to an apartment. An action by the initiative “Enfants de Don Quichotte” (“Children of Don Quichottes”), which erected a long row of red tents for the homeless in the middle of Paris on the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin , accelerated political decision-making. The draft law “Droit au Logement” (right to housing) won the support of then Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin . Furthermore, a law is planned that will levy a tax of 0.1 percent on textiles in order to finance used clothing services.

Political statements

In the 1960s, Abbé Pierre sought understanding for the conscientious objectors of the French colonial wars . In 1984 he sided with the squatters . In 1995, during the Bosnian War , he toured the besieged Bosnian capital Sarajevo . He then pleaded for a NATO operation against Serbia, which is traditionally allied with France, on the grounds that “cowardice is worse than violence”. He supported liberation theologians and took care of AIDS sufferers.

Abbé Pierre questioned compulsory celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church and advocated the female priesthood . He rejected the church's condom ban and advocated a liberal stance on contraception. In addition, homosexual couples should be allowed to adopt children. The papacy, in his opinion, was too powerful. The local churches should free themselves from Roman patronage. Then the Roman Catholic Church could become completely "Protestant" again and a reconciliation of Christians would be possible. He also hinted at fleeting sexual encounters in his 2005 autobiography.

Abbé Pierre's approval of Roger Garaudy's revisionist book The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics met with great criticism . Garaudy was sentenced to a heavy fine in 1998 for Holocaust denial . Abbé Pierre distanced himself from the content of the book and stated that he had not read it. In September 1996 he finally distanced himself from his controversial statements on the Holocaust on the CD Le Grand Pardon (The Great Pardon) and pleaded for a "planetary consciousness without all nationalisms".

Awards

He has received several awards for his commitment and twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius even suggested adding Abbé Pierre to the pantheon of national heroes.

  • Médaille de la Resistance
    Abbé Pierre on the reverse of the French 2 euro commemorative coin
  • Croix de guerre 1939–1945 with bronze palm branches
  • Officer of the Cedar Order
  • 1981 Officer of the Legion of Honor
  • 1987 Commander of the Legion of Honor
  • 1991 Balzan Prize for Humanity, Peace and Brotherhood among Nations
  • 1992 Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor - rejected by him in protest against insufficient support for the homeless
  • In 2001 he accepted the honor; President Jacques Chirac described him as a "living legend".
  • 2004 Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor
  • In 2012, on the occasion of his 100th birthday , the Banque de France dedicated a coin image to the clergyman on the national side of the French 2 euro commemorative coin

Quotes

"You don't have to be extraordinary yourself to do something extraordinary."

- Abbé Pierre

various

  • The French singer Patricia Kaas dedicated the title L'abbé caillou to Grouès from her 2003 album “ Sexe fort ”.

Publications

Some of his books have also been translated into German. One of his most famous works is C'est quoi la mort? that is primarily about life. It is entirely in the style of the world success The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry .

  • What is it, death? A conversation about the meaning of life. Tyrolia, Innsbruck 2012, ISBN 978-3-7022-3200-9 .
  • Anne Facérias and Daniel Facérias (eds.): Abbé Pierre - Père Pedro . Pour un monde de justice et de paix. Presses de la renaissance, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-7509-0044-1 (interviews and conversations with Abbé Pierre)
  • My god why Questions from a contentious man of God. dtv , Munich 2007, ISBN 3-423-24617-0
  • Memoirs of an indomitable Christian. Tyrolia, Innsbruck 2013, ISBN 978-3-7022-3283-2

Filmography

Web links

Commons : Abbé Pierre  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Obituaries

Pictures and videos

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Favorite French. In: Berliner Zeitung . October 22, 2002, accessed September 7, 2015 .
  2. ↑ "Body Priest" , Tagblatt , January 23, 2007
  3. ↑ a b Kath.net : “The French poor priest Abbé Pierre is dead” , January 22, 2007
  4. ↑ a b Catholic Sunday Gazette January 28, 2007
  5. ↑ L'engagement politique de l'abbé Pierre (1942-1951). Emmaüs International.
  6. ^ Mourning for the "father of the poor": Abbé Pierre dead. In: Hamburger Morgenpost . January 22, 2007, archived from the original on September 8, 2012 ; accessed on August 19, 2018 .
  7. ↑ "Camping with the homeless" , Telepolis , January 15, 2007
  8. ↑ "With the homeless in the election campaign" , Deutsche Welle , January 4, 2007
  9. ^ "France wants the right to a home" , news.ch , January 3, 2007
  10. ↑ See Simon Epstein: Roger Garaudy, Abbe Pierre and the French Negationists. In: Robert S. Wistrich (Ed.): Holocaust Denial. The Politics of Perfidy. de Gruyter, Berlin 2012.
  11. ^ Bibliography , Nouvel Observateur, January 27, 2007
  12. ↑ Legendary French poor priest Abbé Pierre dead. "An incarnation of the good". The new era, January 22, 2007
  13. ↑ Abbé Pierre and Karl Leisner , Monsignore Stefan Heße for the Catholic Broadcasting Unit NRW 2009; Retrieved November 19, 2012
  14. ↑ For a table of contents see Days and Nights in Paris. In: Zelluloid.de. Archived from the original on December 6, 2015 ; accessed on August 19, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Abbé Pierre
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grouès, Henri (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French priest and founder of the Emmaus charity
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Lyon
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 2007
Place of death Paris