Walter Hughes, Ottawa, ON

THE BIRTH OF L’ARCHE

Love cannot bloom without an expression of that love. There will be a need between the lovers to build up that love. This expression can take various forms. It may simply be the things that they do for one another. It may be a project to better the world somehow. It may be a child or indeed a family. L’Arche began as an idea of Fr T. Philippe who proposed to Vanier that they take in three adult men with intellectual disabilities.

This became a transforming experience for Vanier, who now found his calling at the age of 35 years. That project finally appeared in the creation of L’Arche. While many contributed to the creation of that institution, these four individuals formed the core of the group that commenced it. Is it possible that this foursome, with some others, saw themselves as what we would call today, an ‘alternate family’?

The first L’Arche home opened in 1964 and sought to treat people with intellectual disabilities respectfully. The model spread around the world quickly. While Vanier was the visible face or the organization, the project involved several members of the mystical sect, as well as other followers of Vanier, and indeed many outsiders. From the beginning, Vanier understood that the project would demand a formal and legal framework, reaching out to rich and powerful patrons, material and financial administration, fund-raising, and partnership with public agencies. His naval training as a leader of men helped tremendously.

Seven years later, Vanier and Marie-Hélène Mathieu founded Faith & Light, an association of communities supporting people with intellectual disabilities and their families and friends. These two organizations brought together the abled and the disabled. Vanier’s love of the disabled and his concern for the families was authentic. In his L’Arche home in Trosly France, Vanier found the family with whom he could live and flourish.

That project finally appeared in the creation of L’Arche. While many contributed to the creation of that institution, these four individuals formed the core of the group that commenced it. Is it possible that this foursome, with some others, saw themselves as what we would call today, an ‘alternate family’? Before we dismiss this idea, now may be a time to seek counsel from three modern popes.

PAPAL REFLECTIONS ON SEX, LOVE AND GOD

Three post-conciliar popes have each written a major reflection on love: Familiaris consortio (FC) (1981) by John-Paul II, Deus caritas est (DCE) (2006) by Benedict XVI, and Amoris Laetitia (AL) (2016) by Francis. All are well worth a read and are part of a dialogue with the Church to comprehend our purpose and our relations with God. The title of John-Paul’s exhortation, translated as The Fellowship of the Family, was meant as a theology of the family. In it, he said:

“God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. … As an incarnate spirit, that is a soul which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is called to love in his unified totality. Love includes the human body, and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love. … Sexuality … is by no means something purely biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person…. The total physical self-giving would be a lie if it were not the sign and fruit of a total personal self-giving…. Man cannot live without love.” (FC 11, 18)

In his exhortation on love, John-Paul introduced a notion into Catholic thinking that had a major influence on Francis’ document, and this was the ‘law of gradualness,’ a pastoral teaching that recognized the gradual maturing of our faith and of our integration of that faith as reflected in our actions. Or in John-Paul’s words:

“(A) conversion of mind and heart (to) following Christ …. is brought about concretely in steps which lead us ever forward…. (This) dynamic process … advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God and the demands of His definitive and absolute love in the entire personal and social life of man.” (FC 9)

The Study Commission did not present Fr Philippe theology or where he went on doctrine. Certainly, the understanding of that theology, according to what his students claimed, is shocking. However, if we had more detailed passages from the priest’s own writings and mystical musings, we might be able to compare them to Pope Benedict’s GOD IS LOVE, which also uses mystical language about love. Speaking of sexual love, Pope Benedict said it is the ‘Creator’s gift’ and ‘a happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the Divine’. He added that it was ‘a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that beatitude for which our whole being yearns.’
Benedict castigates ‘(a)n intoxicated and undisciplined eros.’ Instead, he praises ‘the experience of a love which involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other.’ Benedict was certainly no killjoy. ‘God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape.’ (DCE 3, 6, 7) While it seems that the Dominican priest may have gone off the deep end in some of his theological reflections, there may be truths to be salvaged from them.

In THE JOY OF LOVE, Francis references John-Paul’s pastoral counsel to justify his merciful approach to irregular family situations. Frances wrote:

“This (law of gradualness) is not a ‘gradualness of law’ but rather a gradualness in the prudential exercise of free acts on the part of subjects who are not in a position to understand, appreciate, or fully carry out the objective demands of the law. (AL 295) (Do not simply) apply moral laws to those living in ‘irregular’ situations. … Because of forms of conditioning and mitigating factors, it is possible that in an objective situation of sin – which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such – a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end.’ (AL 305) He adds quickly, “… to avoid all misunderstanding, I would point out that in no way must the Church desist from proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its grandeur.” (AL 307)

Basically, Francis is telling pastors not to be over quick to judge individuals in ‘irregular’ situations, but rather that the Church should assist the individuals to grow in the life of grace and charity.

This reflection on the papal statements on love may seem to have come from nowhere, but we were drawn to them by the Study, which looked at Familiaris consortio while discussing Jean Vanier’s books, particularly Man and Woman He Made Them. ‘In this book, we find several footnotes referring explicitly to texts of the Catholic Church and of John Paul II himself.’ They quote John-Paul to help the reader better understand Jean Vanier. The two men had similar ideas and Vanier was clearly influenced by the pope. Vanier wrote his book after reading the Pope’s exhortation on the family. In his mid-fifties, Vanier was maturing in his faith and his understanding, just as John-Paul described in his law of gradualness.

When did this period of deeper reflection begin? When did Vanier begin to develop a different understanding than taught him by Fr Philippe? It may have begun due to a personal crisis experience a decade earlier. In the mid-Seventies, Vanier would renew his attempt to be ordained. In 1977, because of a ‘total absence of judgment in the appreciation of the moral responsibility’ of Fr T. Philippe, the Vatican closed the door permanently on any possibility of ordination for J. Vanier. The Study concluded that as his priestly vocation was thwarted, Vanier, would seek out not a priestly role, but the prophetic function of a preacher to compensate. Vanier had published a few books already. Vanier would soon move out of his leadership role at L’Arche and throw himself into his writings. However, he would continue living at Trosly. The experience of L’Arche gave him unique insights to share, and upon these he would make his career as someone who wrote about love, relationships, sexuality and community.

VANIER’S REFLECTIONS ON THE INCARNATION

Did Vanier amend / correct his mentor on some aspect of his teaching? The priest insisted that Mary personally gave dispensations on sexual activity stemming from her sexual relations with the Lord. The Study does not attribute such comments to Vanier, although it does say that Vanier frequently references ‘Jesus and Mary.’ Where the Study gives substance to Vanier’s mentions of the son and mother, it is often in terms of Mary’s role in the Incarnation. What did it mean to be the mother of Jesus?

This was a very natural reflection for someone raised in the Carmelite tradition to contemplate on Mary, the Mother of God, and to wonder what she ‘pondered in her heart.’ In his 1988 book, “The Broken Body,” Vanier writes so intensely of the physical ties between mother and son, but not in a way that we might call sexual. He reminds us that the Son of God sailed into the world down Mary’s birth canal. No one was ever as physically intimate with Jesus as she.

“In order to welcome the gift of the body of Jesus, we must look more fully at the Woman who conceived him, who gave birth to him: Mary. Nobody enveloped his body, touched it, loved it, washed it, venerated it like her. The body of Christ was born from her own body, it is the fruit of her womb.”

There is not a hint of incest there. Vanier was simply reminding us that Jesus was God made flesh. He was Mary’s flesh and blood, born to be held and suckled by her. If Jesus gave his body up for the world, she gave him her body as a vehicle by which to be born and fed. Western religious art has many tender representations of Madonna and Child. Vanier’s writing evidences that he reflected on these, possibly seeing in these paintings the intimacy that he missed as a child when his mother was ill and stand-offish.
In reading the Study, one must be careful not to blur the differences between Fr Philippe and Vanier. To be clear, my reading of the Study associates the idea of incestuous relations between Jesus and Mary with Fr Philippe. This idea was justly condemned by the Vatican as heretical. Based on this, the priest justified sexual dispensations.

The Study has a lengthy assessment of love and intimacy as understood by Vanier. Could this explain how Vanier’s references to Jesus and Mary. Could the justification of adult sexual relations be founded on the intimacy of mother-child relationship. In a chapter written by Gwennola Rimbaut, the spiritual writer on the team, the Study considers how Vanier viewed the mother-child relationship. Rimbaut focused use of the word ‘communion’ as used by Vanier in the sentence ‘The newborn child lives in a profound communion with its mother.’ Rimbaut said that Vanier’s ‘communion’ has a sense of merging with the other. Was this the link for Vanier? Rimbaud then explored Vanier sense of fusion and whether he recognized the individuality of the other. Rimbaud said that Vanier vacillated considerably.

VANIER’S VICTIMS

Until now, we have been considering Vanier’s relations within the mystical sect. That is, with the mostly Religious women introduced to him by Fr Philippe. Vanier was the last to be initiated before the closing of L’Eau vive. He was also the youngest. He did not organize that group but was a victim of Fr Philippe as much as anyone else.

Now we are going to focus on a different group of women, the women who came to L’Arche in Trosly to volunteer to work with the mentally disabled. Who were they?

The Study said, of Vanier’s victims, ‘almost all of these women were young adults (20-35 years old).’ In quoting several phrases of a 2021 study on sexual violence in the Catholic Church in France, the L’Arche Study said of the victims:

“…the people recruited fit the profile of the ‘pious girl’, i.e. having received a gendered education which emphasised ‘obedience and piety’ and discretion, marked by ‘a family taboo on sexuality’, an insistence on Catholic morality and discipline which would in many cases result in naivety or even emotional and sexual immaturity in adulthood. Numerous studies … have shown how a person with this profile was particularly at risk of being ‘incapable of identifying a sexual advance or act’ and of reacting with ‘docility’ – despite doubts – to solicitations from a cleric.”

When Jean was a boy, he had been raised to follow orders, to be pious and honourable, and became sexually mature only at the age of twenty-four. In many ways, Vanier’s victims were like himself as a young man. The Study suggests that Vanier possibly selected these people for nefarious reasons, but it may simply have been because he was comfortable with them. They were like him.

One might ask about Vanier’s sexual activities with these women, Did they go all the way? Was there coition or penetration? The Study says ‘No.’ The Study is quite definitive about this. By the time Vanier joined the mystical sect, there was a no-penetration rule. “J. Vanier continued the sexual behaviour of the “tout petits” group which he joined. According to currently available testimonies, this sexual behaviour only concerned adult women (he) seduced during spiritual guidance sessions, indulging in oral and manual intercourse without penetration.” A linked footnote said, ‘No penetration had not always been the rule ….’ This absence of penetration is remarkable and is mentioned on several pages and by different witnesses. It requires explanation.

On this subject, the Study draws a sharp line between Fr Philippe and Jean Vanier. In the Vatican 1950s’ investigation of the priest, it came out that, in the 1940s, he had impregnated Anne de Rosanbo and that she had had an abortion. Fr Philippe confessed to being the father. Decades later, two victims at L’Arche accused Philippe of violent assault and rape. There was another priest at L’Arche at some point. Not much is said of him. Father Gilbert Adam is described as having ‘demonstrated a range of behaviours, words and actions similar to those of T. Philippe.’ It is said that he was different than Vanier and Philippe in that he practiced coitus with the woman, as there was no risk of unwanted pregnancy due to his infertility.

The authors of the report suggest that the reason for non-penetration was to prevent pregnancy. Some witnesses said as much. There may be more than one explanation. Contemporary French law defined rape as an act of sexual penetration involving violence, constraint, threat or surprise. It could be that the men also sought to avoid charges of rape.

The intimacies experienced by the L’Arche volunteers under Vanier’s mentorship varied greatly between mentees. Some women spoke of partial nudity in a regular relationship which lasted months. Others indicated that he turned quickly to making out. Mentor and mentee acted like teenage lovers, commented one author. Another victim said that she had a platonic relationship with Vanier during her first stay, but it became something else during her second stay. Another witness said that she had a relationship for a decade before they became physical. To explain this variation, one author of the Study suggested that Vanier was judging how far he could get with the women? That may be the case, but he gave no justification for why it might have been so. It is simply a possibility.

Here is another possibility. Vanier followed a code. What code? In the 1920s through the 1950s, when Vanier was growing up, there was a code, at least in America, that young adults followed. It was a widespread practice, depicted in glossy pictures in Life magazine and subject to its own chapter in the Kinsey Report on female sexuality. Following this code, couples would stage their level of physical intimacy – necking, petting and heavy petting – to the level of their commitment to one another. Penetration was not allowed except in the case of marriage. Some interpreted that as meaning ‘formal engagement.’

Would Vanier follow that code if he has already been more intimate within the women of the mystical sect? There is some question as to how intimate that he was with even those women. The Study is vague about such details. They themselves may not know very much. By the time they did their interviews, many of these women had passed on. Some of Vanier’s letters and the responses he received used very heated imagery. Then again, they were written in mystical language; what did it really mean? It may have been all talk and no action.

However, these were not mere games that Vanier was playing with the women. These were mentoring sessions. Some women came to learn spirituality from someone who they possibly considered a living saint. Vanier’s spirituality included more than a touch of sexuality, so the subject may have come up naturally. Some women came to be counselled about their life decisions. Sometimes, this meant whether to take a vow of chastity. Vanier had views on that. Even if they timidly raised a question of sexuality, or even if they had flown across the Atlantic in hope of bedding a saint, all these women deserved better than they got. Some witnesses identified a coldness or lack of empathy on Vanier’s part. The psychoanalyst explained this based on Vanier’s family history. Some expressed bafflement at Vanier’s behaviour; I concur but have tried here to understand it.

As the Study pointed out, Vanier had authority. He had charismatic authority, institutional authority, spiritual authority, and fame. As with all God’s gifts, these must be used with love, justice and responsibility. If he wanted to play the prophet and share his ideas mixing spirituality and sexuality, he should have published them, like his compatriot, Leonard Cohen. By the time that Vanier became famous, he was in his fifties. As Benedict said, ‘Love now becomes concern and care for the other.’ Vanier showed some love for his people with intellectual disabilities, but less so for their assistants.

To conclude, I note, with the Study, that the women were all of age to have decided to engage in the sexual activities that they did, that there was no suggested abuse of the intellectually disabled, and that the appropriate contemporary laws were not broken by Vanier. The Study concluded that both Fr Philippe and Jean Vanier were sincere in their beliefs, even though their belief seems so strange and even repulsive. The Study questioned Vanier’s ethics appropriately, but some of the analysis was facile. Most notable was the lack of discernment of differences between the mentor and his student and of the different relationships between Vanier and the mystical sect vis-a-vis Vanier and the volunteers at L’Arche.

The Church condemned Fr Philippe and told him to practice as a priest no longer, but they lost sight of him and failed to stop him. The Church understood that Vanier was also a risk, so refused to ordain him. Well done! The members of the mystical sect were sinful; they broke all the rules. Then they created an institution that has grown and flourished internationally by loving the unloved. How did that happen?