grip, sexual assault … Two overwhelming surveys highlight the actions of several figures of the Church – including Jean Vanier, founder of the ark – and the way in which some have been overlooked for decades.
by Gaétan Supertino
A “secret society” at the heart of the Catholic Church: this is what two reports published this week describe by independent commissions, mandated by the ark – a federation of associations helping people with a deficiency Intellectual – and the Order of Dominicans.
These two relationships are mainly interested in three great figures of contemporary Catholicism: Jean Vanier, founder of the ark, died in 2019, and two Dominicans, Thomas Philippe, “spiritual father” by Jean Vanier and chaplain of the ‘ Arche (died in 1993), and his brother Marie-Dominique Philippe, known to be the founder of the Saint-Jean community (died in 2006).
The relationships show that the three men constituted the hard core of a group formed around the spiritual center of living water, founded in 1945 by Thomas Philippe. Sometimes described as a sect, this group is at the origin of countless drifts, whose reports draw up a non -exhaustive list: “grip, sexual abuse, collective delirium”, etc.
actions known since 1952
The report commissioned by the ark is particularly interested in Jean Vanier. Written by six researchers, he reveals that at least twenty-five adult women (against six identified until then) experienced “a situation involving a sexual act or an intimate gesture” with him, between 1952 and 2019. Even if some were granted, these relationships “all of them are part of a continuum of confusion, grip and abuse”.
The second report, published by Cerf editions under the title The affair – the Dominicans in the face of the scandal of the Philippe brothers, decrypts, meanwhile, the way in which their actions have been able to remain secret for decades. New illustration of an omerta culture that recent cases of pedocrime and sexual violence had already widely revealed. “We are here faced with a very specific affair. It is a question of grip, sexual assault without physical violence. But what is found from one case to another are the uses and the misuses of secrecy by The institution “, analyzes the historian Tangi Cavalin, author of this second report.
The actions of the Philippe brothers have since been known since, at least, March 1952. Two women, described by the report as “warning launches”, then claimed to have been victims of sexual assault on the part of Thomas Philippe. They testify to the Dominican authorities, who decide to launch an investigation. After a few weeks, the file arrives at the Saint-Office, the Church court. “At the time, it seemed unthinkable that one could refer to a civil court. The Church considered that it had its own law and its own courts, which were there for that,” recalls Tangi Cavalin.
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