Jean Vanier

Immoral exemplars leave us to grapple with a host of difficult ethical questions. Among these are certainly questions about their status and the value of their work. But these are not the only — or even the most important — issues. We also must consider the concerns of survivors, the integrity of our most treasured traditions and institutions, and how our response might contribute to a more just world. When we focus solely on the status of the tainted thinker and their work, much of the ethical picture fades from view.

I wish the world could read a thoroughly-researched, 900-page report from the women who Vanier preyed on; a full report, written in their own handwriting and spoken in their own voices about what he took from them. I wish the world could understand that the women are more than the sorrow brought about by this injustice. They are resilient, and whether we know them or not, their stories are a part of our story — the story of L’Arche as well as the broader human story.

The guru effect. Magnetism. A “living saint.” Jean Vanier’s powerful presence made people feel seen, even transformed. But what role does charismatic leadership play in abuse?

We now know the founding story Jean Vanier told for decades isn't true. Host Jenna Barnett talks with L'Arche USA's Tina Boverman and author Carolyn Whitney-Brown as they try to untangle L'Arche's mission from Vanier's lies.

A just-released, 900-page report uncovers new details about Jean Vanier's abuse. In light of this news, host Jenna Barnett changes plans for this episode and talks with Sojourners' Mitchell Atencio about what we know.

Jean Vanier died in May 2019, a spiritual leader celebrated for his work with people with intellectual disabilities. But in February 2020, he died again — shaking the global network of communities he founded.

THIS IS ONE way to tell the founding story of L’Arche:

The main character is a sailor-turned-ethicist named Jean Vanier. The son of the governor general of Canada, he was, as his biographer Anne-Sophie Constant wrote, “a child of privilege, he had danced with princesses, dined with politicians and philosophers, and circled the world twice.”

As the story goes, Vanier gave all that up in 1964 when his spiritual mentor, Thomas Philippe, a Dominican priest, took him on a tour of the psychiatric facility where Philippe was a chaplain. There, Vanier discovered, as he put it, “an immense world of pain.” This is not an exaggeration: At the time, asylums, which were notorious for overcrowding and abuse, functioned more as prisons than treatment centers. Inside these walls, Vanier heard an invitation — from Jesus and the men with intellectual disabilities — to do something.

So Vanier bought a broken-down house in Trosly, France, and invited two men from the mental institution to live with him. He named the home “L’Arche,” French for “The Ark,” a biblical symbol of protection in a storm-tossed world. Vanier traveled around the globe to tell the story of their life together, and soon L’Arche communities sprouted up in Canada, India, Australia, Haiti, and beyond — a constellation of communities where adults with and without intellectual disabilities have aspired to live, work, pray, and play together as equals. L’Arche became integral to the movement for the deinstitutionalization of people with intellectual disabilities, and Vanier became a best-selling Christian writer and hero to all of us looking to practice a faith that prioritized those on the margins.

When he was introduced to give lectures, Vanier often said, “I feel uncomfortable when people say nice things about me.” Yet the world had lots of nice things to say, bestowing upon Vanier countless awards, including the French Legion of Honor, the Companion of the Order of Canada, and the Templeton Prize. But for me, a certain 2010 accolade feels the most poignant: Astrophysicist C.J. Krieger discovered an asteroid and named it after Vanier. Vanier is above us; Vanier spins on a different celestial plane than the rest of us.

Before he died, Vanier was often called a living saint. Upon his death in 2019, Pope Francis sent his sympathies, asking Jesus to welcome Vanier into heaven as his faithful servant. It’s the type of eulogizing that you expect for someone who saw beauty and divinity where others saw shame and destitution.

It’s an inspiring story that changed thousands of lives: At the time of Vanier’s death, there were 147 L’Arche communities in 37 countries, home to approximately 10,000 people with intellectual disabilities. The protagonist of the story also saved my faith, showing me how Christianity is capable of destabilizing dangerous institutions, rocking the boat, building new arks.

Unfortunately, it’s a bad story.

On Saturday, L’Arche International — a network of more than 154 communities in 38 countries where people with intellectual disabilities and those without intellectual disabilities live together in community to "work together to build a more human society" — announced the results of an investigation it commissioned last year into L’Arche founder Jean Vanier, who died in 2019. The investigation revealed that that Vanier “has been accused of manipulative sexual relationships and emotional abuse between 1970 and 2005, usually within a relational context where he exercised significant power and a psychological hold over the alleged victims,” as Tina Bovermann, Executive Director of L’Arche USA put it in a letter describing the investigation and its findings.