Dear friends,
Since the terrible revelations about Jean Vanier came to light, many of you have reached out with your sympathy and shared your reactions. I am deeply grateful for your friendship and your prayers.
I myself am stunned, and more than that, profoundly saddened for the women who suffered violence at Jean's hands, and for the communities of L'Arca shaken by scandal—communities from which I have received so much.
I honor the women who had the courage to speak, so that L'Arca might find a just and true path and avoid such harm. I think of their suffering. I am moved by what L'Arca's leaders—Stéphane Posner, Stacy Cates-Carney, Pierre Jacquand, and Bishop d'Ornellas—have done and written to bring truth to light. L'Arca will be freer for it.
Marked by infinite sadness, I am troubled and shaken. For some fifty years, Jean and I shared a very strong bond. He supported me greatly. He and the members of L'Arca communities shaped my priesthood and episcopate deeply—you all know this and have witnessed it. Jean gave me wise counsel. He even kept me from drowning, once or twice, when the waters of great trials threatened to pull me under. Yes, the good Jean did for me and for so many others is immense and will remain. Through him and in L'Arca communities, I learned what the Church is: a community of mercy and hope, of celebration, of forgiveness, of service, in which poverty and richness are shared by all its members, who need one another (see the washing of feet) to grow and mature. Jean and L'Arca kept me in the heart of the Gospel. My gratitude is, remains, and will always be great.
Now I must reckon with this hidden side of Jean—revealed at last—and I am bewildered, thinking of the luminous heights he reached. I am struck by disbelief and incomprehension. Yet what has come to light is true, verified, proven. If Jean had simply fallen short in chastity or moral conduct, I would have regretted it without judgment, all too aware that I cannot cast the first stone. But this is something else: Jean violated the freedom and dignity of numerous women. He abused them through spiritual direction, including sexual abuse, and caused them immense suffering. This is utterly to be condemned.
But there is more, and here I understand nothing. Jean began these scandalous practices under the influence of Father Thomas. He adhered—at least until 2005—to the erotic pseudo-mystical theories of this priest. Jean Vanier, a philosophy professor, a man of great learning, respected internationally, a friend and defender of the oppressed and the poor—how could he have believed that these theories and practices, so foolish and harmful, came from a secret confided to Father Thomas (by God? By the Virgin Mary? In some so-called spiritual experience that spawned perversion)? A secret that the Church cannot yet understand (Father Thomas said, unsurprised when Pope John XXIII asked Jean Vanier to break with him, because this pope could not understand). I do not know how Jean could have believed and lived all this, listening to that "little voice of conscience" he spoke of so often. If he kept silent about his own actions and lied about knowing Father Thomas's, was it because he judged it all to be evil, or because he thought we could not understand it yet? In any case, it is unacceptable and exceeds my understanding of the Jean Vanier I knew, whose message's depth and whose personality's influence I came to know. Yet I can only recognize this terrible reality, question myself, and accept in suffering that I have no answer.
Why did he deny it to the end—except just before dying, when he asked forgiveness from one person, but told her, "I thought it was good for you"? I heard someone say that Jean may have been a dissociative amnesic, whose actions no longer touched his conscience. I do not know if this has a basis in psychology and psychiatry. In any case, it does not diminish the gravity of his actions, or the suffering caused, or our desolation. It does show, however, how from his youth until his death, Jean was subjected to an incredible influence by Father Thomas.
The revelations have incalculable consequences. I think first of the communities of L'Arca and Faith and Light, so shaken. I trust in their future, because I am certain that it is people with disabilities who, in their simplicity and their power to live the present, will help us all grow by God's grace. The mysterious presence of Jesus, who identified with them—are they not all sources of unity?
This also strikes a hard blow at the Church's mission and at all who, outside the Church, serve the poor, the disabled, the excluded, the oppressed. I think too of all the seekers of meaning who have turned, or once turned, to God and the Gospel.
I cannot forget those who constantly attack Christians as "hypocrites in a hypocritical Church." They have found grist for their mill in all of this.
Let us be honest: a serious brake has been put on the proclamation of the Good News. I find no comfort in this, but through prayer and God's Word, I try to strengthen my faith and hope to cross this abyss. My faith does not fail, but it is questioned. It gives me no easy answers or solutions. Walking with my reason, it compels me to face human realities and reckon with them. I refuse to falsely "spiritualize" this tragedy with pious words, and I continue on, convinced that neither death nor life…nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 8:38–39).
I am troubled by another consequence as well. It was Jean Vanier who, through his retreats and talks, his books and encounters, maintained the historical and spiritual link between L'Arca and its source—the Gospel, and thus the Lord Jesus himself. The reference to Jean will certainly loosen, and with it, the explicit reference to L'Arca's source. To secure L'Arca's future, open to all, we must hope that there will always be Christians able to witness, in word and deed, to what they have received from that source, since the Gospel is part of L'Arca's very identity. This is my personal conviction.
Dear friends, "in prayer with you amid the ruins of Jerusalem," a monk friend wrote to me. Yes, there are ruins, and all the inhabitants of the L'Arca world are in exile, and we with them. The prophet is gone, and we struggle to hear his voice, though it remains valid. But "the temple" (= L'Arca + Faith and Light) is not destroyed, and the little ones and the poor are prophets who call us to love, fruit of compassion, justice, and truth. We must ensure that our exile becomes an exodus that, through this trial, will lead us to the freedom of a promised land. The two international coordinators of L'Arca wrote to the communities: what we learn today is a trial that unsettles us, but what we lose in certainty, we hope to gain in maturity, and to continue with L'Arca with greater clarity and freedom. Yes, I believe it—a trial can strip us of much so that we might gain far more and better. And again: the thorns that cross our path feed a fire that lights the way, as Frère Alois of Taizé wrote. Let us lean on the Lord. Let us ask for the light and strength of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray for L'Arca and for Faith and Light and for all their members and friends. From now on, all of us must be able to sing: Behold, God comes to my aid. The Lord is with those who sustain me. I sing to you because you lift me up (Taizé).
With my prayer for you all and my friendship.