Adieu, Abbé Pierre!

The French won my heart all over again today. Tens of thousands of ordinary Frenchmen (and some extraordinary ones) turned out for the funeral of Abbé Pierre at Nôtre Dame de Paris. "Abbé Pierre" was the nom de guerre of a leftist priest, who helped save Jews during the war and went on to found the world-wide Emmaus community.

Emmaus is a network of communes that collects clothing and furniture, much like the Salvation Army, and resells it to benefit the homeless. Volunteers help with the work. (Those of you who know Gregg and Marianne Westigaard may remember that they met at the Emmaus House in Sweden.) Abbé Pierre himself was always poor, walking around Paris in a beret and black cape. He was in the tradition of French religious eccentrics, priests and others, which includes the Jean-Baptiste Vianney (the Curé d'Ars), Charles de Foucault, Léon Bloy, and Peter Maurin.

His funeral was a national event. I wasn't able to get into the Cathedral, but I got up close to the barrier on the Parvis, right in front of the great doors, which stood open to receive his coffin. It was a beautiful day, but the Parvis was full, as was the Church. The place was crawling with police, gendarmerie, firemen in rubber suits (one with an outrageous Dali mustache and goatée), soldiers, commandos, and naval cadets in their cute little striped shirts and beribboned berets. Two of them were the official military honor guards flanking the great doors, and they were women. People of all ages came, some in buses from Emmaus houses all over Europe. Many dignitaries pulled up between me and the doors, including one who was booed and jeered (Sarkoszy, I think - it was kind of a left-wing crowd), and no one made a sound when the big, black Citroën, flying from its fender the tricolor with a black mourning ribbon, pulled up to disgorge the President of France. The Archbishop of Paris (not yet a Cardinal), vested in a purple chasuble and radiant pallium, formally greeted him and then turned him over to the Dean, who escorted M. Chirac, like a king, to a velvet throne just in front of the bier.

There was no bier, actually, just four huge candles arranged in a square. Like Pope John Paul II, Abbe Pierre, simple wooden coffin was laid on the floor. (All of this was on national TV, conveniently visible on two huge screens in the Parvis.) The hearse drove very slowly through the streets. Meanwhile, the great low bells began to toll and the procession rounded the corner from the sacristy, making its way outside to the fromt of the Cathedral. Led by thurifer (huge censer) attended by a middle-aged boat-boy, four big torches surrounding the processional cross, many vested priests and monastics, a whole slew of deacons (all wearing their purple stoles in the style of an Orthodox protodeacon), about a dozen bishops, including two of the RC Eastern Rite. Among the honored guests (not in the procession) also were the Rector of the Chief Mosque of Paris and the Orthodox Archbishop. There was also someone there in an Anglican cassock, but it wan't our American Bishop-in-charge.

The Archbishop said some initial prayers over the coffin while it was still in the hearse. Then eight men of every age and race carried it on their shoulders into the Cathedral. When they started to move, the crowd applauded, and this continued inside Nôtre Dame until it was laid down. (I don't know if that is traditional in France. The only other place I have seen it is at a Papal funeral.) The pallbearers carefully turned the coffin around, so that the head was nearest the altar, as befits a priest. Then they put his black cape over it and the formal jewelled insignia of the Légion d’Honneur rested on top of his beret on the coffin above his head. It was reported that Abbé Pierre recently relented and finally accepted the highest degree of the Légion, having refused it repeatedly over the years. It is France’s highest civilian honor.

This was the homage solonelle. There was also an homage non solonelle last night at a big soccer stadium for 17,000 people. All this for a rather irascible, unkemptly-bearded (he looked like Mr. Natural!), vaguely scandalous figure. Can you imagine the Predident of the United States and citizens from all over the country standing for hours to pay respects to Dorothy Day? Ha! But the French, though they may sneer and scoff and deny any belief and never go to church, still are proud of their saints. More, they are grateful for them. There was no sneering or irony in this huge crowd in one of the world’s most sophisticated cities. I was in tears. I left at the Kyrie .

France at her best.