Abbé Pierre, 91, Fervid Champion of Poor

from The New York Sun

By STEPHEN MILLER

Henri Grouès, who died yesterday at a Paris hospital, was the activist priest whose "holy anger" at poverty and homelessness forced the French politicians to address the nation's problems and inspired the international Emmaus Community for the poor, now in 39 nations. He was 94.

A member of the French Resistance who once carried General Charles de Gaulle's brother to safety across the Swiss border, Grouès continued in peacetime to be known by his nom de guerre, Abbé Pierre.

Abbé Pierre leapt to international fame during the frigid winter of 1954 with a radio appeal to France to come to the aid of the homeless. His appeal set off a wave of donations, and the French government responded with new programs to help the homeless and a law, still on the books, forbidding wintertime evictions.

Emboldened, Abbé Pierre became to many the conscience of the nation, speaking out on issues of poverty and civil right for immigrants. He brought strident advice to churchmen and to world leaders, including President Eisenhower, whom he urged to make war on poverty.

On a tour of South America in 1959, Abbé Pierre told an Ecuadorian bishop to scrap plans for an elaborate cathedral and give the money to the poor. And he urged Pope John Paul II to retire at age 75, which, given the pontiff's popularity, must have taken guts. The pope evidently liked Abbé Pierre and had four audiences with him, which was surprising, as Abbé Pierre called for the right of priests to marry and for the church to ordain women. He even admitted that he had broken his vow of chastity "on rare occasions" when he was a young priest.

Abbé Pierre was the son of a wealthy silk manufacturer in Lyon. Inspired while still a teenager by St. Francis of Assisi, he renounced his inheritance, distributed his belongings to the poor, and at 18 entered a Capuchin seminary. He was ordained as a priest by the inspirational theologian Fr. Henri de Lubac, who, Abbé Pierre said, advised him to "make just one prayer to the Holy Spirit: ask it to grant you the anticlericalism of the saints."