Jean Vanier had the kindest of faces. A mop of white hair, bushy eyebrows, a noble aquiline nose with creases radiating out from the eyes and the mouth that suggested decades of smiling. A tall man, he spoke softly, slowly, inviting trust and confidence.
In 1964, the Catholic theologian set up what was to become the l’Arche community, a place where men and women with learning difficulties would share their lives with others. It was a place where people could discover what it was to be human, Vanier often remarked. The last time I met him was back in 2015, when he spoke to a packed committee room of the House of Commons. He talked movingly about what the weak can teach the strong, that the vulnerability of the weak contains a vital message about who we really are, a message that is concealed by all the guises we put on in order to hide from our own inherent all-too-human vulnerabilities.
The total effect of his presence and his words was to calm me, soothe me. This is why I was a Christian. He was the nearest thing to a saint I had ever met. I loved Jean Vanier.
A few days ago, the l’Arche community published a report, the result of an internal inquiry, in which Jean Vanier was exposed as a sexual predator. And I have been reeling from it ever since. The sense of disappointment is crushing. I don’t want to write about it. I’m not sure how to write about it. I feel I have to write about it.
First, the details, such as they are known. It seems that over the course of several decades Vanier had sexual relationships with a number of women who had come to him for spiritual accompaniment. These were not women with learning difficulties, but they were vulnerable nonetheless. Under the influence of Vanier’s enormous charismatic power, they were seduced into relationships that they experienced as abusive. It seems that Vanier used the language of Christian vulnerability in order to persuade women to sleep with him.
I write “it seems” not to indicate some reservation about these women’s testimony. I believe them. Nonetheless, Vanier died last year and the report commissioned by l’Arche says that the standard of proof that they have employed is more on the balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt. But the testimony of the women that they interviewed independently of each other suggests a pattern. He would talk the language of the Bible, of the need for vulnerability, in order to persuade women to have sex with him. And then he would swear them to secrecy.
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SubscribeThank you for this. I am late coming to it, but as one who has been thrown into deep despair by abuse at the hands of “good Christians,” I am deeply consoled by your witness.
Thank you for this. I am late coming to it, but as one who has been thrown into deep despair by abuse at the hands of “good Christians,” I am deeply consoled by your witness.