BORDEAUX (FRANCE)
Crux [Denver CO]
May 28, 2026
By Fionn Shiner
On Thursday, a French laywoman released a memoir in which she accused a priest of the Emmanuel Community of sexually abusing her over a period of several years.
Claudine Blanchard, a consecrated laywoman of the Emmanuel Community, released her book A Red Sofa: From Control to Freedom, in which she alleges a priest called “Father B.” sexually abused her.
“Under the influence of a priest, I was abused for ten years without even knowing it,” she says in the book, alleging the abuse started in 2003 and took place in L’Île-Bouchard and Paray-le-Monial, where there are sanctuaries run by the Emmanuel Community.
French Catholic newspaper La Croix has said that by cross-referencing the information in the book, and speaking to members of the community, it presumes “Father B.” is Father Bernard Peyrous.
Peyrous is a priest from the Diocese of Bordeaux and a former member of the community, who is being formally investigated for rape and sexual assault against adult women. He denies criminal wrongdoing and is presumed innocent.
“Father Bernard Peyrous has acknowledged having had relationships incompatible with the priesthood, but he denies having acted in violation of criminal law,” Peyrous’ lawyer, Charles Dufranc, told La Croix.
He suggested the book was “published to defend the reputation of the Emmanuel Community and the author’s personal interests” and added that “there will be a disconnect with the substance of the legal case, which is very weak.”
Blanchard’s allegations are that the abuse took place in the context of a relationship of spiritual direction and mentorship, similar to the abuse committed by Jean Vanier, the man who founded L’Arche. In 2020, L’Arche published an internal report that found Vanier had sexually abused six women between 1970 and 2005.
Blanchard’s book states that in 2005, she wrote a letter to Peyrous asking him to be “the father God had asked him to be” for her, after which Peyrous took her up to his office and caressed her stomach.
Blanchard alleges that from that moment onwards, this conduct escalated “to the point of nudity, total humiliation, to the point of rape.”
“We discover with astonishment, and with immense sadness, how a gifted and generous person can be led to do what she detests,” Bishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort wrote in the book’s preface.
Earlier problems
In 2017, the Diocese of Bordeaux and the Emmanuel Community imposed restrictions on Peyrous after a woman alleged he gave her a massage after a spiritual direction session that left her traumatized.
Peyrous was sent to the Abbey of Fontgombault for several months, and then for two years could only accompany the sick and officiate at funerals in the diocese of Toulouse.
According to La Croix, the diocese of Bordeaux opened a canonical investigation in 2019 which resulted in further restrictions on Peyrous, and he was barred from returning to L’Île-Bouchard, in the Diocese of Tours for three years.
In 2021, Blanchard filed a criminal complaint and in 2024 the priest was placed under judicial investigation.
“One cannot help but think that at the very moment when the Emmanuel Community is explicitly implicated, its leaders are taking the initiative to give the Peyrous case a criminal twist, in order to better distance themselves from him,” Dufranc said.
The Emmanuel Community – of which Blanchard is still a member – is subject to an apostolic visitation and wants to establish an independent commission into the case.
Two days before the publication of Blanchard’s book, in a message to supporters, it admitted to “having failed in its support.”
“Her testimony, like that of others, is part of a search for truth and a sense of responsibility that compels us: we must continue to re-examine our history with the same determination,” the message added.