Mary embodies some of my most deeply held values.

As a young, poor woman from Galilee, she represents how God chose to enter into human existence in the most radically humble way.

Her "Magnificat" is one of the most powerful passages in the Gospels. And her own "yes" to God is, of course, the ultimate model of how a human being should relate to God.

These lessons, though, often become muddled when Mary is presented only as a model for women.

As the theologian Elizabeth Johnson wrote in her book on Mary, Truly Our Sister, Mary is often seen as "the ideal embodiment of feminine essence." She continues,

Whether her perfection then serves to disparage other women or to inspire them, her obedient, responsive, maternal image is at play in the community as the norm for women in contrast to men. When combined with an understanding of God and Christ as essentially masculine, the result reproduces in theology, spirituality and church polity nothing less than the patriarchal order of the world, now with divine sanction.

When viewed through this lens, Mary represents an impossible double standard.

The poet Mary Szybist told me that encountering Mary this way damaged her own sense of self-worth: "The message is that [as a woman] you are valued for your virginity and you are valued for being a mother.

To grow up to be neither a virgin nor a mother leaves the puzzle, under that kind of pressure of imagination, how does one value oneself?"

Mothers, too, struggle with how to relate to Mary's virginity and the emphasis the church places on it.

No one, after all, is both a virgin and a mother.

It was that double standard and the way Mary was invoked as "divine sanction" for the "patriarchal order of the world," that led me to keep her at arm's length through much of my life.

I often told people that, intellectually, I just didn't understand the appeal of Marian devotion.

What it was about Mary that, for example, led some of the most progressive Catholics I knew to pray the Rosary every day.

Mary, despite my hesitations, has always been present to me.

At times it feels I have been haunted by her, to borrow a phrase Dorothy Day used to speak about God.

Perhaps it is my many years of Catholic school, or my teenage habit of praying a Rosary on my morning drive every day, but I have always found myself reflexively reciting Hail Marys in life's liminal moments: washing my hands, waiting for a red light to change, watching hot coffee drip into the carafe.

Without ever really thinking about it, I am always talking to her, always in the same words, echoing the Annunciation ("Hail Mary, full of grace…"), and finally asking her to remember me now and at the hour of my death.

My mental hangups with Mary, though, kept me from talking to her beyond these almost unconscious recitations.

I tried to separate the liberating images of Mary from the oppressive ones, but I never could.

I found that the figure of Mary was too entangled in arguments that did not resonate with me or my understanding of myself as a woman.

Then I became pregnant, and my struggling relationship with Mary became impossible to ignore. Continue reading

I've written almost completely uncritically about the founder of L'Arche several times at America: I called him a "revered spiritual master and prophetic voice" whose messages "always bear repeating" in a review of his last book; I wrote America's obituary of Jean Vanier; I teared up on camera while talking with Tina Bovermann of L'Arche USA about Vanier's life.

Now, L'Arche has released an internal report detailing credible allegations of sexual abuse against Vanier by six non-disabled women.

The report says that Vanier initiated sex in the context of spiritual direction and offered "highly unusual spiritual or mystical explanations used to justify these behaviours."

This kind of behaviour echoes the sexual abuse perpetrated by Vanier's spiritual mentor, Father Thomas Philippe.

The new L'Arche report also shows that Jean Vanier lied about how much he had known about accusations against Father Philippe.

Ms. Bovermann, the L'Arche spokeswoman I interviewed just after Vanier's death, spoke to my colleague Michael J. O'Loughlin about the abuse allegations against Vanier: "I can't wrap my head around it," she said.

Nor can I.

I don't mean that I disbelieve the women who brought these accusations forward.

The public excerpts of their testimonies were harrowing, and I trust the thoroughness of the third-party investigation.

What I mean is that it is difficult for me to reconcile Vanier's abuse with my long-held image of him as a saint.

I was introduced to Jean Vanier's thought as a senior in college, when I was stressed about my impending graduation to "the real world."

Would I make enough money?

Would I move up quickly in my career? Would people think well of me?

One night, I sat with my friend Katie, who had recently returned from a year at a L'Arche community in Ireland.

In response to my anxieties, she asked if I'd ever heard of Jean Vanier.

She explained to me his idea that, while society tells us we will only find happiness by climbing the ladder of wealth and prestige, true Christian happiness comes from climbing down the ladder, choosing to give up power and money in order to live in community and solidarity with the poor and outcast.

The idea was a revelation. I chewed over it for hours in my prayer and writing and tried to apply it, however poorly, in my decision-making.

I deeply wanted the true happiness Vanier pointed to.

I read his books and listened to his interviews slowly and meditatively and urged others to do the same.

After he died, I hung a photo of him on my desk.

Like many, I believed he was a saint.

Part of me wonders now if I was foolish, if I should have known better than to valorize any Catholic this way after watching Theodore McCarrick's precipitous fall from grace in 2018 or even watching St. John Paul II's record on sexual abuse be called into serious question after hearing the crowds chant "Santo Subito" in 2005.

If such widely respected men could commit decades of abuse or turn a blind eye to allegations, why should I have believed Jean Vanier could not do the same? Continue reading

• Colleen Dulle is the assistant producer of audio and video at America.