Letters from future sexual predator Abbé Pierre reveal a man tormented from an early age

On the long wooden table reserved for consulting the riches of the Fraternité des Capucins library in the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris, the in-house archivist placed two dark gray boxes and an old photo album. They elucidate the little-known life of Abbé Pierre before he was a Resistance fighter honored by Charles de Gaulle, the founder of the solidarity organization Emmaüs, or a sexual predator accused of assaulting 24 women including at least three minors.

No, there’s nothing of the sort in these boxes, which tell the story of young Henri Grouès, who became Brother Philippe at the age of 19 after donning the Capuchin habit on November 21, 1931, at the novitiate of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, in Saint-Etienne. He remained there for a year, then continued his ecclesiastical career at the Couvent de Crest (Crest Convent, southwest France), until the spring of 1939. It was then that he asked to leave the order, shortly after his ordination to the priesthood.

In fact, there’s nothing of the future apostle of the poor in these archives, but some weighty, previously unrevealed secrets. Over the course of reading the priest-to-be’s correspondence, a portrait emerges of a man tormented by the flesh from his earliest childhood. And those pressing, disordered urges never seem to have been channeled.

Driven by a deep concern for transparency, the Capuchins accepted Le Monde’s request to consult Brother Philippe’s monastic correspondence. Researchers had already been granted access to it, but no journalist had wished to delve into it, they said.

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