The independent commission mandated by the ark published on Monday a report which reveals that not six but twenty-five women were sexually assaulted by the Catholic philosopher, between 1952 and 2019.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
An independent investigation commissioned by the ark, published Monday, January 30, confirms the broad “grip” that Jean Vanier could exercise, Catholic spiritual figure dead in 2019 and accused of sexual assault in February 2020. Information had caused a shock wave in the Catholic environment.
L’Arche, a federation of associations founded by Jean Vanier and which welcomes people with intellectual disabilities in thirty-eight countries, had unveiled an internal report led by an independent organization. The latter revealed that Jean Vanier had with six adult and unabled women, some of whom are vulnerable, “sexual relations, generally within the framework of spiritual support, and some of which have kept deep wounds”.
Monday, an independent study committee, set up in November 2020 by the international arch and made up of six researchers, made its conclusions which also relate to the Dominican Thomas Philippe, the chaplain of the ark and Spiritual father of Jean Vanier, died in 1993. This 900-page document, notably consulted by The cross , reveals that not six, but twenty-five major women, single , married or consecrated, unable, were identified for having “lived, at a time of their relationship with Jean Vanier, a situation involving a sexual act or an intimate gesture”, between “1952 and 2019”.
“Some have presented themselves as victims of an abusive relationship, others rather as consenting partners of a transgressive relationship. These relationships (…) all of them are part of a continuum of confusion, grip and ‘Abuse, “said the ark, in a distinct press release. “Getting, sexual abuse, collective delirium, deviation of notions at the heart of Christianity, incestuous representations of relations between Jesus and Mary” were the “mechanisms deployed” both by Jean Vanier and Thomas Philippe, sums up the report.
“Deviant theories and practices”
In the press release, the officials of the international ark, Stephan Posner and Stacy Cates Carney, expressed their “dismay” and condemned “unreservedly, the actions” of the two men. “The ark recognizes its responsibility for having not been able to prevent these abuses, or to identify them, to report them, and therefore, or to put them end”, writes the association. The ark which is not an ecclesial structure, announces that it has decided “to join the recognition and repair commission (CRR)”, set up in 2021 for victims of sexual violence committed in religious congregations.
Thomas Philippe and his brother Marie-Dominique Philippe, who was also Dominican, are known for a long time for their “deviant theories and practices”, in the words of the Church. Both were the subject of canonical sanctions emanating from Rome, respectively in 1956 and 1957.
Another independent commission of several researchers was mandated by the Order of the Dominicans to examine how these two brothers were able to continue, despite denunciations and the convictions of the Vatican, to exercise within their respective community. His conclusions will be made public on Friday, in the form of a work entitled The case – the Dominicans in the face of the scandal of the Philippe brothers (editions du Cerf).
“It is not that ecclesiastical powers have done nothing”, but “throughout their lives, the Philippe brothers have managed to thwart all the attempts of ecclesiastical powers to control them,” said his Author, the historian Tangi Cavalin. “The institution, both [Dominican] order and also outside, turned out to be incapable of preventing these abuses,” deplored Nicolas Texier, French manager of the Dominican Order.