While the first report found Vanier perverted Catholic doctrine about Jesus and Mary to justify his own sexual compulsions and abuse women, a subsequent report discovered an even worse side to the great man.

The movement he created had at its core a secret, mystical-sexual "sect," and was founded for the precise purpose of hiding the sect's deviant activities from church authorities.

The findings have rocked the group to its core.

They are especially shocked as L'Arche commissioned independent scholars to investigate after receiving a first complaint from a victim a few years before Vanier's death.

Vanier's deceptions saw him eulogised by many as a "living saint". Among his admirers was Pope Francis, who thought of him as a "great" Christian.

What now?

The latest revelations about Vanier's fall from grace have resulted in L'Arche's national and regional leaders meeting for the past week.

They aim to chart a path forward, now that their official history has been shown to be a lie.

Their emotions are raw.

"I believed in something, in a vision that then is revealed to you and you're told it's not like that," says Azucena Bustamante.

She oversees five L'Arche communities in Central America. "It does frustrate me — the damage it has caused to a lot of people who believed in this, and then found out everything we were made to believe, it's a lie."

L'Arche's leaders have apologised to the victims, thanked them for their courage in coming forward and assumed responsibility for not spotting the abuses earlier.

They say they questioned Vanier repeatedly as soon as the first victims came forward and asked what he knew about the community founder French Dominican Fr Thomas Philippe's 1956 Holy Office condemnation, but he lied to them.

Jean Vanier

Vanier - a layman - founded L'Arche in 1964 in northern France.

He built the utopian-style, Catholic-inspired community into an international movement bringing people with and without disabilities to live together in a spirit of mutual respect.

Vanier arrived at his calling after joining a spiritual community, L'Eau Vive, in 1950.

Reports say Vanier fell under Philippe's spell and was initiated into his mystical-sexual practices.

In 1956 the Vatican forbade Philippe from public or private ministry, ordered L'Eau Vive dissolved and forbade its members from reconstituting the community.

Nonetheless, Philippe, Vanier and the women they had manipulated disobeyed and regularly met in secret.

Over time, Philippe resumed his priestly ministry as his Dominican superiors ignored the Vatican sanctions.

The researchers concluded Vanier founded L'Arche as a "screen" to hide the original L'Eau Vive group's reunification.

However, they noted Vanier's sincere commitment to help people who would otherwise be institutionalised.

Of the 25 women Vanier abused, none were intellectually disabled.

While Vanier and Philippe's deviant practices didn't extend beyond the core "sect" at the original community, the researchers are calling for vigilance, especially in the way authority and power are exercised in L'Arche's numerous communities.

Source

• AP News
• CathNews NZ

I am impressed by the courage of L'Arche International in mandating this report and in the expertise, and thorough investigation carried out by the people who made up the Commission group.

Jean Vanier and his writings have played a central part in my life and spirituality for over 40 years.

I have been involved in Faith and Light in local, national and international roles, and in 1989 my husband Roger and I founded the Marralomeda Community, which is based very much on the philosophy of L'Arche.

Many emotions came to the surface as I read the report.

It was different from the initial shock I experienced when I first heard the news of the abuse in 2020.

At that time, I felt shock, anger and deep grief as the image of the person I thought I knew crumbled.…

I was betrayed.

This time I was disturbed by the extent of the abuse and the lack of Jean's insight and remorse for the damage that had been inflicted on the women concerned. Also, the lies that he told in 2016 about his lack of knowledge and shock at hearing of Thomas Philippe's abuse of women when he was engaging in the same practices himself.

Those things were very hard for me to come to terms with.

It went against everything I believed about this man who, through his writing and retreats, I regarded as a mentor.

I am not one to put people on a pedestal as I know we are all human, with all the gifts and frailties that go with that condition, but I believed that through his chosen life of prayer and living with people with intellectual disabilities he had wisdom and insights that I could rely on.

When I first heard him speak about L'Arche in the Christchurch Cathedral on a very cold night in May 1977, the trajectory of my life changed.

A call from God stirred in me that night, and over the years, Roger and I have been involved in Faith and Light.

Central to my life ever since has been reading the writings of Jean.

What to make of it all?

At times as I read the report I wanted to stop and not read any more… but I knew that I had to face the reality of all that it contained and then entrust the pain to God.

I also asked myself, "what are the learnings from this?"

The grief re-emerged, and I found myself shedding tears again.

I know that eventually, as I sit with it all and bring it to prayer, God will heal and teach me what I need to know.

However, at the moment, I know L'Arche and Faith and Light are not dependent on Jean Vanier.

He was certainly an important part (with others) of the foundation stories. But today in L'Arche and Faith and Light there are thousands of people around the world living lives that have as a mission to spread the realm of God; their special charism is to build community with people with and without intellectual disabilities.

Each organization has a vision, a charter and a constitution and good people in leadership at a variety of levels….. each striving to bring the kingdom of God to their corner of our world.

And isn't this what Jesus asked us to do?

I hold those in leadership (especially those who, like myself, had strong connections to Jean) in prayer as they attempt to hold the vision while managing their personal feelings.

So although I am saddened and perplexed by all that I have read.

I am also hopeful because we are involved in God's work in our world and that is where our strength and way forward must come from….listening to the murmur of the Holy Spirit deep within each of us, being open to where that takes us as we live the vocation of our organizations as outlined in our charters and vision statements.

We are held in the palm of God's hand.

• Anne-Marie Pike.
• Marralomeda is a Christian community where people with and without a learning disability share life together. Twenty-Two people with a learning disability live in five homes in Redwood with those who support them. Through ordinary daily activities, the community supports each other and enables the unique gift of each person to be recognised and celebrated.

A 437-page report, published after a two-year investigation, exposes the shocking details of how L'Arche's founder, Jean Vanier (pictured), created a secretive "sect" within the Catholic Church.

Vanier used seduction, manipulation, secrecy, and coercion to initiate as many as 25 young women into mystical-sexual practices and abused them sexually and spiritually.

The report is the latest in a series of documents exposing cases of abuse by priests and charismatic lay leaders, which the Vatican has long dismissed as mere "boundary violations".

Sister Veronique Margron, the president of the conference of religious orders in France, expressed her shock at the findings. She has called for a reexamination of the Catholic Church's "entire ecclesial, theological, and pastoral culture".

In a statement, she criticised the secrecy and "great silence" of the Vatican that allowed Vanier and his spiritual guru, the Rev Thomas Philippe, to abuse with impunity.

Pope Francis has also commented on the issue, acknowledging in an interview with the Associated Press that the Catholic Church still has a long way to go in dealing with the abuse of "vulnerable adults" and that more transparency and speaking out is needed.

The findings of the report raise serious questions about the Catholic Church's handling of abuse cases and its response to the exploitation of vulnerable individuals.

The L'Arche abuse case is just one of many such instances that have been handled without due care.

The demands from the religious orders in France are a call to action for the Catholic Church to take responsibility for its past actions and to make meaningful changes to prevent abuse from happening in the future.

Sources

AP News

CathNews New Zealand

The report provides evidence that the sexual exploitation of women was the primary motivation for Vanier's founding of the organisation.

Jean Vanier, who founded the organisation in 1964, has been accused of exploiting at least 25 women until his death in 2019, according to the report.

The independent report states that Vanier created L'Arche as a "screen" to reunite a religious sect, L'Eau Vive, which was disbanded for its exploitive "mystical-sexual" beliefs and practices. These included "sexual abuse, collective delirium, and incestuous representations of relationships between Jesus and Mary".

The report has sparked several questions about how the "mystical-sexual" practices remained hidden for nearly 80 years as L'Arche grew worldwide and why they remained confined to the first L'Arche community in Trosly-Breuil, France.

According to Mitchell Atencio, who has been covering the story for Sojourners magazine, an influx of new workers and increased contact with government authorities, which resulted from L'Arche's rapid growth, confined and hid the small sectarian cohort in rural France.

The report highlights various reasons that led to the unchallenged reassembly of the former members of L'Eau Vive. One of the factors mentioned is the jurisdiction disputes that took place between the Dominicans in France, the local diocese, and the Vatican. Additionally, the report states that the Holy Office kept the reasons behind L'Eau Vive's dissolution confidential.

The executive director of L'Arche USA, Tina Bovermann, has stated that the organisation "trusts and painfully accepts the truth that was revealed." She also apologised for the suffering caused by the abuses and acknowledged that L'Arche was not able to prevent, identify, or report the abuses and could not stop them.

L'Arche praised for transparency

The report has already had a significant impact on the L'Arche organisation. L'Arche International is a member of the Commission Reconnaissance et Réparation (Recognition and Reparation Commission), an independent commission set up by the French Catholic Church to receive and treat reparation requests for abuse committed by clerics or lay people.

The commission's restorative justice process offers individualised reparations ranging from financial compensation to therapeutic writing workshops.

L'Arche has been praised for its transparency and candour in the investigation process, which has been described as a truth-telling exercise in establishing what happened.

Jenna Barnett, who has been following the L'Arche story for several years, has been working on a podcast, "Lead Us Not," which focuses on the aftermath of the abuse and healing for those affected.

The report serves as a stark reminder of the ongoing challenge of ensuring that vulnerable individuals are protected from abuse and exploitation, and that perpetrators are held accountable for their actions.

The report's findings that the L'Arche founder sexually exploited women will profoundly impact the L'Arche community. It will also raise questions about how similar abuses can be prevented in the future.

Sources

America Magazine

In her letter to the pope (which she published on her personal website on 26 February) McAleese said she was "disturbed by aspects" of the L'Arche investigation into Vanier which "implicate the Holy See in a way that demands explanation."

She pointed to Vanier's relationship with Father Thomas Philippe OP, who was implicated in the sexual abuse of women during spiritual counseling from the 1950's.

"Given that vulnerable men and women were the intended beneficiaries of L'Arche and that Vanier was consistently lauded by the Church at the highest level without the remotest suggestion that there was anything worrying in his character it is essential that the Holy See now explains how it came to so publicly commend a man whose predatory proclivities it was aware of," her letter says.

"What steps if any did the Holy See take to interrupt the growth of the powerful cult of Vanier by warning the many good men and women who trusted him in good faith that he had an alarming past?"

"I have no doubt that L'Arche will recover and continue its great work for it has its owns integrity which is more than capable of transcending the Vanier betrayal. I am not so sure about whether trust in the Holy See will recover so easily," she said.

"Many times in recent years I have had reason to despair at the failures at papal, episcopal and Curial level regarding the protection of vulnerable children and the vindication of victims. Rebuilding trust is a work in the very early stages of progress."

"If ... the Holy See failed to act to protect members of the L'Arche community by alerting them to the known predatory activities of Vanier and Philippe ... this will be my final line of least resistance."

"I could not in conscience continue to support an institution capable of such gross negligence."

McAleese has a canon law degree from Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University.

Vanier founded L'Arche in 1964 to work with the intellectually disabled.

He developed a community model where people with disabilities lived with the people who assisted them.

Although Vanier was a Catholic, L'Arche isn't affiliated with any religious denomination.

After Vanier's death last year, Francis thanked God for his ministry and called him a "great witness."

Late last month, L'Arche International announced that credible complaints has led them to believe Vanier had sexually abused at least six women under the pretext of spiritual counseling.

Source

• Crux Now
• Image: The Irish Times

I remembered this warning when I heard about the fall of another famous icon, Brother Jean Vanier, the revered founder of L'Arche, an ecumenical community where disabled and able persons live in Christian fellowship.

Vanier, who died last year at the age of 90, has been credibly accused of an abusive sexual relationship with six non-disabled adult women to whom he was giving spiritual direction.

In other words, this was not just a one-night fling with someone met in a singles bar.

These were calculated and manipulative attacks on women under the guise of bringing them closer to God.

These accusations were investigated by an independent agency at the request of L'Arche's new leadership, which agreed with the findings and made them public.

Despite our anger, we should still congratulate L'Arche for its transparency. We must also thank the women who had the courage to come forward.

Vanier was once talked about as a possible recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, even canonization.

To discover that such a person was a fraud makes me angry.

Jean Vanier's actions were calculated and manipulative attacks on women under the guise of bringing them closer to God.

At the same time, I ask myself, why am I surprised?

History has taught us the flawed and sinful character of most famous men.

Some of the founding fathers fathered children with their slaves. History is full of bad popes, bishops and priests. European and American history is full of great leaders and thinkers who were anti-Semites and racists.

During my lifetime, John Kennedy and Thomas Merton had their affairs.

The "Me Too" movement has ripped away the curtain to expose men who are not the gentlemen they projected publicly.

Even the Scriptures describe people as flawed who played important roles in salvation history: Eve, Abraham, Moses, David and the Twelve.

It is nearly impossible to find an important figure in the Bible who is not also a sinner. In Mark's Gospel, nobody understands Jesus, not even his mother (Mark 3).

• Does that mean that we must discard everything these sinners did?
• Do we stop honouring Abraham because he pimped his wife to Pharaoh in exchange for livestock and slaves?
• Do we stop praying the psalms because David had Uriah killed so he could have his wife Bathsheba?
• Do we burn the books of Thomas Merton because he had an affair?
• Do we close down L'Arche because Vanier abused his position as a spiritual father?

The message of the Scriptures is not that these are holy men but that God can use flawed and sinful people to do great things.

We continue to see that throughout history and in our own time. Part of growing up is recognizing that our heroes have clay feet.

Forgiveness is something else

I can forgive Eve, the Twelve, Merton and sins of weakness, but I am not ready to forgive Abraham, David, Theodore McCarrick, Vanier, Harvey Weinstein and others who abused their power to prey on the vulnerable.

I will leave their forgiveness to God.

I am still angry because of the harm done to the people who were exploited by these men.

I am also angry because they have made me a cynic when it comes to great artists, politicians and religious leaders. It has gotten to the point where I even take Mother Teresa, Pope Francis and Big Bird with a grain of salt.

As a social scientist, I am never surprised by sin, corruption and conflict.

I am a firm believer in Original Sin, for which there is lots of empirical evidence, although I don't blame it on Eve and the apple.

For me, Original Sin is the reality that sins of the past provide fertile ground for sins in the present (think slavery and racism). And sins in our time will make it difficult for people to be good in the future (think global warming).

What surprises me is goodness, kindness and love, which are signs of God's grace in the world.

Many people turn away from God because they cannot resolve the problem of evil: How can there be a God when there is such evil in the world?

I have the opposite question.

Granted that we have been struggling to survive ever since we crawled out of the muck, evil does not surprise me.

I am surprised by the problem of good. Why is there good in the world?

Given where we came from and the world in which we live, why is there love?

Why is there self-sacrifice? These are miracles of grace. These are signs of the Holy Spirit, God's presence in the world.

It is the Holy Spirit that pushes us upward in our evolutionary journey beyond selfishness and sin to kindness and love.

So, if you, too, are angry and depressed by the failures of great men, if all these failures are turning you into a cynic, don't let sin blind you to the presence of grace in our world.

Be surprised by love.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

This is quite alarming and depressing because the Church in North America has been dealing with issues regarding priests who abuse children and teenagers for at least thirty if not forty years.

Catholics in Great Britain, Ireland and Australia have been facing this "plague" for almost as long. And those in the countries of northern Europe began reckoning more openly with abuse among the clerical ranks shortly after the turn of the millennium.

In the last several years, Catholics in the rest of the world have also been forced to admit that there are recurrences of priest sex abuse in their countries, too.

This includes places in the former Catholic bastions of Latin America and southern Europe, the largely homophobic continent of Africa and the mostly non-Christian expanse of Asia.

It seems like wherever 2 or 3 (hundred thousand) people are gathered in the name of Catholicism, there is clergy sexual abuse in their midst.

Sex makes Catholics go blind

As Catholics, we don't like to hear that. And we don't want to admit it, either. But what is worse is that many of us do not want to see - or maybe we're too blinded by culture and history to see - what sexual abuse is really all about.

It is not about sex.

I repeat, and ask you to pause and think about it for a moment. It is not about sex.

For most Catholics, this is probably even harder to hear, because we don't deal with sexual things very well.

Our confused Church teachings on the subject tend to either make human sexuality an idol or (and, thankfully, this is less common today) something that's dirty.

Reactions to recent revelations that Jean Vanier sexually abused several women to prove the point.

The French-Canadian layman, who was seen as something of a living saint for his extraordinary work with mentally disabled people, was not guilty of committing sins against the Sixth Commandment.

At least not principally, so it seems clear to me.

'Encroaching intimacy' and the false spiritualization of sex.

The women say Vanier abused them sexually. But they also say he did this under the pretext of some sort of mystical spirituality.

As much as this was sexual abuse in the physical sense, it was, even more, a spiritual abuse of these women, in the way he used the things of God to manipulate or control them.

Jean Vanier used spirituality - what I have learned to call from my own painful experience "encroaching intimacy" - as a way to obtain what the other person would not or could not offer freely.

I've never heard any theologian or preacher speak of it this way, but I am convinced that this is what it means to violate the Second Commandment, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."

There are people in the Church, especially among the ordained ministers (deacons, priests and bishops) or even lay leaders with a certain charism (like Vanier), who do this in a variety of ways.

Using one's religious status

They use their position in the Church or their spiritual authority to satisfy their own self-centred needs or desires.

They do so - and often with little self-awareness, it seems to me - by convincing people in the name of God to give them money, sex, honours, private information about others and all sorts of things.

Tele-evangelists who get rich peddling the so-called "prosperity Gospel" are the most obnoxious and blatant example of this. Certain scandal-stained Catholic religious orders that bilk widows and other wealthy people are no better.

We tend to look disapprovingly on them and rightly so.

Yet we fail to see how our own good priests and bishops - and other charismatic spiritual leaders - can fall prey to the same temptation to use their religious status (and, often unconsciously!) to feed their own personal needs.

And when I say "we", I mean all of us Catholics. We tend to be blinded to this reality. We don't want to see it.

In the name of the father

It is probably no coincidence that in a Church (and a society) that is male-dominated, the vast majority of those who sexually or spiritually take advantage of others are men.

The desire of men to manipulate or even abuse those who are weaker or under their authority - women, other men, teens or children - is probably also reinforced, even unwittingly, by the simple fact that men have always been able to do so in a patriarchal system like that of the Church.

Patriarchy and its first-born son, clericalism, have allowed men of God to violate the true meaning of the Second Commandment, probably from the days when the giants of our faith walked the earth.

They will continue to do so until women truly become equal members of the Church, equal to men at every level of decision-making authority and at every level of ministerial service.

We will not get to the root of the Church's crisis of abuse until that happens.

• Robert Mickens is LCI Editor in Chief. He has lived, studied and worked in Rome for 30 years. Over that time he has studied at the Gregorian University, worked at Vatican Radio and been the Rome correspondent for the London Tablet.

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.

The allegations follow months of investigation into the man praised by popes and politicians for his humanitarian work in establishing a global network of institutions serving adults with physical and intellectual disabilities.

The accusations involve six women of various "ages, geographic origin and status - married, unmarried, vowed celibate", says a report following the investigation.

The identity of the women has been kept confidential. However, sexual activity with Vanier, who died in May last year aged 90, "was coerced or took place under coercive conditions", the report says.

Four of the six women brought their allegations against Vanier after his death, while two came forward while he was still alive, the first in 2016.

They had no prior knowledge of each other's experiences, but they "reported similar facts associated with highly unusual spiritual or mystical explanations used to justify these sexual behaviours," the report states.

It was L'Arche itself that last April commissioned an independent U.K. consultancy organisation specialising in the reporting of exploitation and abuse, (GCPS), to investigate Vanier's link to Fr. Thomas Philippe, whom Vanier described as his "spiritual mentor".

Vanier wrote publicly in 2015 about the revelations of abuse committed by his spiritual mentor, whose wisdom and dedication to the disabled he said had inspired his own life of service.

The GCPS report's discoveries "shocked" l'Arche International leaders Stephan Posner and Stacy Cates-Carney.

They "unreservedly condemn these actions, which are in total contradiction with the values Jean Vanier claimed and are incompatible with the basic rules of respect and integrity of persons, and contrary to the fundamental principles on which L'Arche is based".

"The considerable good [Vanier] did throughout his life is not in question," Posner says.

L'Arche will "nevertheless have to mourn a certain image we may have had of Jean," he added.

According to archived letters studied in the report, the CDF directed in 1956 that Jean Vanier be informed of the Church's condemnation of Philippe's conduct and "mystical doctrine."

Despite this, Vanier denied in 2015 and 2016 that he had any knowledge of Philippe's abusive behaviour.

The report says Vanier's behaviour follows the pattern of sexually inappropriate behaviour demonstrated by Philippe.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• The Tablet
• America
• Image: Vatican News

Summer in the Forest Summer is a beautiful and moving study of this extraordinary man and the organisation he founded.

Vanier founded L'Arche, a community based outside of Paris for individuals with developmental disabilities, in the 1960s.

His goal for L'Arche was to create an inclusive community where anyone could live a meaningful life.

He single-handedly revolutionised the way in which people with an intellectual disability are seen and cared for, by the simple act of inviting them out of institutions and into his home.

The film poses a challenge to the critical spectator: how to evaluate a work that's so inspiring in content but so uninspired in its form?

One of the many highlights of Summer in the Forest is ‘Meeting' some of the current residents of that home in Trosly-Breuil.

The film also presents Vanier, in his late 80s, as he reflects on his long, productive life.

He comes across as compassionate, wise, and heroically patient, having devoted decades to helping people.

Vanier also seems to have preserved a childlike sense of joy—he claims that play is an important part of his work—and his ability to derive pleasure from everyday moments conveys an enlightened perspective.

The first New Zealand L'Arche Community was founded in Paraparaumu twenty-five years ago.

A second community, L'Arche Mt Tabor, joined the Federation in 2017 after having operated for a number of years as an independent community based on the same principles as L'Arche.

Faith & Light which was co-founded by Vanier also has had a strong presence in New Zealand, having been founded in 1986.

Watch the Trailer for Summer in the Forest

Film screenings:

Auckland: Newmarket Rialto, 31 July 6:00 pm
Palmerston North: Events Cinema, 7 August 6:00 pm
Wellington: Roxy Cinema, 24 July 6:30 pm
Christchurch: Hoyts Northlands, 31 July 6:30 pm

Source

• movementonline.org.nz
• chicagoreader.com
• Image: chicagoreader.com

Participants in the service included people from all Christian faiths with and without intellectual disability.

A joyous atmosphere prevailed as the symbols and banners came up the aisle in procession and then a quiet moment while those present watched a video presentation on Jean's life and message.

Speakers included:

• Anne-Marie Pike, founder of Marralomeda Community, who spoke about the history of the New Zealand Connection with Jean Vanier
• Candice Wilson, community leader of L'Arche Kapiti, who spoke about the significance of the Washing of Feet in their communities
• David Treanor, Envoy L'Arche International, who spoke about Jean Vanier's last weeks and the peace he felt within as he made his journey home. David movingly read Jean's last message to his friends.

The sacrament of the washing of feet is very central to life at L'Arche, Marralomeda and Faith & Light… a ritual that reminds them that Jesus calls us to serve one another.

After a reading from John's Gospel, a mime was presented.

Then everyone in the congregation washed each other's hands in pairs and shared a blessing/prayer together.

Christchurch's Catholic bishop Paul Martin and the Anglican Bishop of Christchurch Peter Carrell washed each other's hands and prayed together.

Quotations from Jean were read by some of the young people present.

The celebration concluded with the singing of "Christ be Our Light" and a bit of fun when everyone batted balloons to each other.

Source

Supplied: Anne-Marie Pike

Jean called this new little community L'Arche, and it grew into a worldwide movement of homes and support networks.

At Jean's invitation, Pauline and Georges Vanier visited the Trosly home—and were still not sure what to make of their son's project.

Shortly after Georges died in 1967, Pauline was on retreat with a friend at a Trappist monastery.

One day during the retreat, the Gospel was the parable of the rich young man who asks Jesus what he must do to inherit the kingdom. Jesus says to him: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." The young man goes away sad because he has many possessions.

After hearing the reading, Madame Vanier ran out of the chapel crying.

Her friend asked what was wrong.

She replied, "I have to go live in Trosly!" And so she did.

Pauline Archer Vanier sold everything she owned and moved into a small house on the Rue d'Orléans in Trosly-Breuil.

She became "Mamie," the grandmother of L'Arche.

For 20 years she lived just two streets up from Jean's house, the Val Fleuri.

I arrived at L'Arche Trosly in 1990 from the L'Arche house in Quebec.

Madame Vanier invited me to lunch at her home within a week.

She was then 92 years old; I was 22—and intimidated.

But we hit it off.

She asked me to come back, so I started visiting every day.

During one of these visits, Jean came in while we were having lunch.

Madame Vanier had her back to the door and did not see her son enter.

He put a finger to his lips, tiptoed up behind her and put his hands over her eyes. "Guess who?" he said, all white-haired and mischievous at 62 years old.

That is the Jean I already miss—miss more than the extraordinary things he did and said.

His profound words and the achievements of his life will be easy to read about for years to come.

But I will miss the ordinary things.

How badly he did dishes.

He just grabbed a large handful of silverware and shook it around in the soapy water before throwing it in the rinse tub.

"You're going too slow," he said, as I tried to rub the food off the forks and spoons.

He had to be taken off dish duty and was assigned to putting leftovers away, and so he started going around to the three dining tables trying to get people to eat whatever was left in the serving bowls.

In his little house next to the chapel in Trosly there was always dried spaghetti stuck to the wall above his stove.

"You throw it at the wall. If it sticks, that is how you know it's done."

I miss how he played with the people in his house.

Jean-Pierre Pratt came into the living room one day.

Without a word he went over to Jean and grabbed his nose.

"I have your nose," said Jean-Pierre. Jean reached up and grabbed Jean-Pierre's nose.

The two very grown men looked at each other laughing and holding each other's noses.

I miss his navy jacket with the zipper he used to move up and down before giving a talk and his navy corduroys with the worn back pocket.

One day he approached Barbara, his assistant for many years, carrying a pair of those pants for her to mend.

He sheepishly pushed his finger through one of the holes in a front pocket.

"So that's where all your money is going," she said.

I miss the way he flapped his hands like hovering pigeons when he talked.

Those long hands attached to long arms that were just slightly too long for his jacket.

He used to help me with my coat then thump my shoulders when he felt the coat was on just right.

I put it down to his aristocratic upbringing. He taught me how to eat artichokes.

Jean always brought everything back to the ordinary.

He will almost certainly be canonized, and perhaps his story and manners will be polished up a bit. But I hope he will also be remembered as a real person. Continue reading

• Image: Gratefulness.org

It's open to the public. There will be a few smaller memorial services around the country that will be announced soon, but the Christchurch one is the primary one.

The L'Arche community would also like to share information on a movie launching in New Zealand in June called Summer in the Forest.

It's a documentary about life in the first L'Arche community of Trosly-Breuil in northern France, and Jean Vanier is featured to a great extent in that movie.

It simply depicts ordinary, everyday life in that community, and the extraordinary nature of what's being lived there. Tickets must be purchased in advance, and the movie will be shown in several city centres: Wellington (June 12th), Auckland (June 12th), Christchurch (June 5th), Palmerston North and Paraparaumu (June 12th). To get more details and to buy tickets, go to: www.summerintheforest.co.nz

Contact for the Kapiti L'Arche community is: Candice Wilson, L'Arche Kapiti on 04 2984633 or 027 307 2477

Supplied

He told reporters he wanted to express his gratitude for his witness.

"Simply put, I want to thank him and thank God for having given us this man with such a great witness," the pope said.

Jean Vanier, whose charity work helped improve conditions for developmentally disabled people all over the world, died on Tuesday aged 90.

He founded the L'Arche communities for intellectually disabled people and also co-founded the Faith and Light communities for people with intellectual disabilities, their families and friends.

A visit to a psychiatric hospital prompted the former Canadian navy officer and professor to turn to charity work.

There he met institutionalised men with intellectual disabilities who were brutalised and neglected.

One of these men asked Vanier, "Will you be my friend?"

From that moment in 1964, the international L'Arche movement of communities dedicated to people with intellectual disabilities began.

He founded L'Arche as an alternative living environment where those with developmental disabilities could fully participate in society instead of as patients.

With Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux, two formerly institutionalised men, Vanier established the first L'Arche ("The Ark") community in an unheated, tumbledown stone house at Trosly-Breuil, north of Paris.

L'Arche now has communities in 38 countries that are home to thousands of people both with and without disabilities.

"He saw people locked up and he decided to make a gesture, inspired by the Bible," said Pierre Jacquand, who leads L'Arche's facilities in France. "He felt a calling to defend the most marginalised.

"He gave them a voice," Jacquand said.

He added that, over time, Vanier's work helped inspire broader change in how France addresses the needs of those with developmental disorders, including Down syndrome and autism spectrum disorders.

Vanier also traveled the world to encourage dialogue across religions.

He was awarded the 2015 Templeton Prize for spiritual work, as well as France's Legion of Honor.

He was also the subject of a documentary shown at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival called "Jean Vanier, the Sacrament of Tenderness."

Pope Francis, who had made a point of thanking Vanier for his work, was informed of his death.

Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti says Francis is praying for him and the community.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• National Catholic Reporter
• Religion News Service
• Washington Post

L'Arche communities are dedicated to creating and developing homes, programmes and support networks for people who have intellectual disabilities.

The official letter accompanying the award says Vanier's "testimony as well as that of the L'Arche Communities, throughout the world and throughout diverse religions and cultures, shows that the values of diversity, solidarity and human dignity are truly a path of communion and peace.

"L'Arche has shown the world how human weakness and handicap can carry a new meaning for what it is to be human.

"We are grateful to you for having accepted to receive this award that strengthens the link between our two communities, and makes of you, Jean, an honorary member of Adyan."

Vanier says the relationship between L'Arche and Adyan means a lot to him, and the award has left a great impact in his heart.

He says he and all L'Arche groups have a great desire to open up to the other, "so we help them and they help us to discover that each one of us is a very beautiful human being."

The Award, now in its 11th year, aims to encourage and honour people devoted to developing and promoting solidarity and unity among citizens of different faiths, especially in the contexts of tension and violence.

Source

• The Tablet
• Adyan
• Image: www.jeanvanier.org

And on the occasion of the Sept. 10 milestone he decided to share a video message in English that proposes "ten rules of life to become more human."

Vanier, son of one of Canada's late governors general, set up his first L'Arche community in 1964 when he welcomed two mentally disabled men into his home in the town of Trosly-Breuil in France.

Today, L'Arche has grown into an international organization of 147 communities in 35 countries.

Its aim is to create homes, programs and support networks with and for people who have developmental disabilities.

Key to L'Arche is understanding that whatever one's intelligence every person has talents to share with others.

One of L'Arche's principles is that being truly together we can be transformed.

Together, in L'Arche communities, integrated in local cultures all over the world, it creates ways to live, work and develop networks.

In L'Arche, each person participates, helps and receives help. L'Arche is founded on mutual relationships.

Recognized as one of the great spiritual figures of our time, Vanier has given hundreds of interviews throughout his life and has authored 30 books.

But since suffering a heart attack in late 2017, he has mostly been keeping a low profile at the same home in France where he established his first community fifty-four years ago.

In this new and inspiring video message, Jean Vanier offers his "ten rules" by sharing his own human story in a very moving way.

Source: International la-Croix

L'Arche is a global network of communities where those with and without developmental disabilities live side by side.

The network was begun in northern France in 1964 when Mr Vanier invited two intellectually disabled men to live with him as friends.

It has evolved into 147 L'Arche communities, in 35 countries.

A support group for families of people with disabilities, known as Faith and Light, has spread to 82 countries.

The Templeton Prize honours those who have made "exceptional contributions" to affirming the spiritual dimension of life.

Previous winners include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the Dalai Lama and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Mr Vanier, who is a Catholic layman, said he will donate the prize money to his charities so they can expand their work internationally.

According to a Religion News Service report, Mr Vanier, 86, said that those with intellectual disabilities offer spiritual lessons and gifts to a world too driven by success and power.

"They are essentially people of the heart," he said.

"When they meet others they do not have a hidden agenda for power or for success. Their cry, their fundamental cry, is for a relationship, a meeting heart to heart.

"It is this meeting that awakens them, opens them up to life, and calls them forth to love in great simplicity, freedom and openness.

"When those ingrained in a culture of winning and of individual success really meet them, and enter into friendship with them, something amazing and wonderful happens.

"They too are opened up to love and even to God. They are changed at a very deep level. They are transformed and become more fundamentally human."

Mr Vanier has written 30 books on religion, normality, success and tolerance.

The Templeton Foundation, which awards the annual prize, was launched by the late Anglo-American financier and philanthropist, Sir John Templeton.

Sources

• Religion News Service
• The Independent
• Image: Catholic Ireland