Word: abbe
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...priest is the Rev. Henri de Grouès, 65, known universally as Abbé Pierre. The only visible indication that he is no ordinary priest is a thin red ribbon of the Legion of Honor stitched on his jacket. But he is the man who, as a former law professor at the Orléans lunch put it, "almost singlehanded mobilized the entire government and people of France to do something for the poor...
...took the vows of the Capuchin order. In 1938, when his health broke after eight years in the monastery at Crest, he moved to a parish in Grenoble. Eventually, he became a leader of the anti-Nazi Resistance in eastern France, using many aliases including the one that stuck: Abbé Pierre. Among other exploits, he carried Charles de Gaulle's ailing brother Jacques across the frontier to safety in Switzerland. Later he himself was smuggled into Algeria in a mail sack, carrying a plea for arms intended for Churchill...
After the war, Abbé Pierre was elected a deputy in the National Assembly. He began renovating a large, ramshackle house in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-Plaisance as a hostel for needy people. Soon ex-cons, destitute families and vagrants joined him, and the abbe and his growing family of followers started building new residences nearby, using salvaged materials. He called his commune Emmaus, after the New Testament town (Luke 24:13-32) where two disciples, despondent after the Crucifixion, met the risen Christ and were filled with new hope. As it happened, the Emmaus movement was to grow...
That came in 1951, when the abbé lost his assembly seat and with it his only income. But just when the commune seemed imperiled, a chiffonier (ragpicker) at Emmaus devised a new source of money: he taught his colleagues how to rummage through trash for useful objects. Scrap paper was sold, broken furniture and appliances were repaired and marketed. The commune became self-supporting and earned enough to add new centers elsewhere. A credo evolved: "Give instant help to those nearest and in need. Show them how to help themselves. Afterward let them help others...
...abbé became known throughout France during the harsh winter of 1954, when he waged a one-man battle to force the government to provide emergency housing for the poor. So great was the public response that the Premier, Joseph Laniel, later said he half-suspected the abbe was planning a revolution and might have succeeded had he tried...