During his lifetime Abbé Pierre, born Henri Grouès, became a symbol of the struggle against poverty and came to embody the French public’s conscience. He was named one of his homeland’s “great Frenchmen” on 16 different occasions and in 2014, received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor from the hands of Jacques Chirac. He established the Emmaus movement, presently made up of 350 member organizations in 37 different countries running income-generating activities with people who have experienced social exclusion. Emmaus International helps the homeless to not only survive, but also become full-fledged members of society.
Henri Grouès was born in 1912 in Lyon, France in a family of respected and devout silk traders. He was the fifth of eight children. As a young boy, Henri was a member of the French scout movement, where he was known as the “meditative beaver” (“castor méditatif”).
In 1928, at the age of 16, he went on a pilgrimage to Rome. There, faith in God struck him “like a thunderbolt,” and just 18 months later Henri joined the Franciscan order. A year later he took the vows of a Capuchin monk and donated all of his possessions to the poor. In 1938, Henri Grouès became a priest, but with the start of Wold War II the young pastor was drafted into the army.
At the beginning of the German occupation of France Henri served as a parish priest in Grenoble. In 1942, he protected Jewish children whose parents had been arrested. He soon acquired a new “nom de guerre” — Abbé Pierre. He was an active member of the Resistance, helping to establish a local band of partisans, and became one of the leaders in the Vercors Plateau and Chartreuse Mountains. He was the man who helped Jacques de Gaulle (General de Gaulle’s younger brother) and his wife escape to neighboring Switzerland.
In 1944 the young priest was arrested, but soon released. He went to Spain, in order to join General de Gaulle in Algiers. Just like other members of the Resistance, Abbé Pierre fought against Nazi oppression and hoped that human rights would once again be restored in France.
His wartime experiences formed the foundation of the iron resolve that determined all of his actions. He was ready to do whatever it took to support a just cause.
After the war, the Abbé was elected as an independent deputy to the National Assembly, but he remained close to General de Gaulle. He received special recognition from progressive Christians, but in 1951 he cut his political career short and returned to his original calling, once again becoming a parish priest.
Back in 1949, Abbé Pierre had established the Emmaus charity movement, named after the Palestinian village mentioned in the Gospel of Luke where two disciples extended hospitality to Jesus after his resurrection. From the very beginning, it was a secular organization aimed at helping the homeless and the poor.
But true fame came to the Abbé after his speech on Radio Luxembourg on February 1, 1954. His words became legendary: “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 2,000 people 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.”
This speech became known as “Abbé Pierre’s call for an uprising of kindness” and triggered an unprecedented wave of aid and volunteering. In response to the speech, thousands of people across France began to donate money to help the homeless. The Abbé himself reacted by saying: “Poverty won’t go away on its own, we have to fight it.” These words became his life’s motto.
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Abbé Pierre in 1955 |
After the speech was broadcast, the radio station’s phones rang off the hook, and in the following days it was swamped with letters. People sent so many donations that it took several weeks just to sort, distribute and find a place to store them throughout the country.
In total, more than 500 million francs were donated.
Two million came from the actor Charlie Chaplin, who said: “I’m not donating this money, I’m returning it. It belongs to the vagabond, like the one I was, the one I portrayed on screen.”
Back then, this was an enormous sum of money.
Abbé Pierre used the money to build several centers for the homeless. At first, these centers were meant to provide emergency help and lodging, but over time some were transformed into full-fledged low-budget housing for the poor. The Abbé also put a lot of effort into passing legislation that forbids evictions during the winter. This law remains in effect in France today.
Relay of gratitude
The priest’s words also inspired thousands of volunteers. First they simply helped to distribute donations; later they began to organize themselves into groups. This "charitable uprising" took the Abbé by surprise. Soon it became obvious that isolated groups would work better together, and on May 23, 1954, Emmaus Communities was established within the Emmaus charity organization.
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Emmaus International logo |
Emmaus communities quickly spread across the world, boosted in no small part by Abbé Pierre’s trips to Latin America. Today, Emmaus communities can be found in 37 countries.
Emmaus oversees the construction of housing for the homeless. They are given food, lodging and jobs. Many of the former homeless become Emmaus volunteers themselves. Some were facing certain death, but were saved by the Emmaus volunteers who were drawn to the movement in that unprecedented “uprising of kindness.”
Abbé Pierre died in Paris in the early morning of January 22, 2007 following a bronchitis-related lung infection. He was 94 years old. But even nine years after his death, he has a special place in many people’s hearts.