Jean Vanier’s sad fall from grace

The fall from grace of Jean Vanier is truly a sad story. The founder of the L’Arche communities did extraordinary work, practical, intellectual and spiritual, to advance the idea that those suffering mental handicap had much to teach the rest of us. His was a radical idea about what community can be. Now, however, L’Arche has accepted a report that Vanier, who died last year, had sexual contact with six women from the 1970s onwards. There is no suggestion of any exploitation of the handicapped. Unlike so many claims in abuse cases, these ones seem to have been carefully investigated. The women (all adults) were his devoted followers. Vanier appears to have told them that by getting close to him they would also get closer to God. In this, he was probably following his friend, a Catholic priest, Fr Thomas Philippe, who advanced such ideas and practices, and was duly disgraced. Archive evidence shows that Thomas Philippe and Vanier kept in touch, the latter helping protect the former. About five years ago, I was sounded out to write a biography of Vanier. I had heard him speak a couple of times and had been deeply impressed. I did have a tiny worm of doubt about the man — not about anything he said, but occasioned by his strong charisma. His ascetic, craggy good looks and incantatory voice reminded me of the somewhat bogus Laurens van der Post, and I noticed that he attracted ardent women. Remembering the history of sexual abuse by those with spiritual power, I pointed out, though I knew nothing against him, how dismal it would be to embark on the tale of a good man and then discover bad facts . This was a small factor — lack of time being the bigger one — in my refusal of the task.

The abuser’s capacity to persuade others, and perhaps even himself, that sexual contact (in Vanier’s case, it appears not to have been full intercourse) is what God wants is, obviously, evil.