Sister Véronique Margron, the president of the French Conference of Religious (CORREF) demanded the Church take responsibility for the record of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuses committed by Jean Vanier and his spiritual mentor, Fr Thomas Philippe.
A 900-page report detailing abuse claims against the French-Canadian founder of L’Arche found that at least 25 women had “experienced sexual contact” with Vanier as “part of a continuum of confusion, control and abuse” between 1950 and 2019.
Fr Philippe, a Dominican, is described by the report as a “deviant mystic” who influenced the “sectarian” group led by Vanier within L’ Arche, the communities he founded where people with disabilities live alongside adults without them.
Sister Margron said the report’s findings prompted questions about the Catholic Church’s “entire ecclesial, theological and pastoral culture, since it has been the breeding ground for abuse, manipulation, aggression, lies and even death”.
She spoke after the publication of the report on January 30. It said Vanier had belonged to a “sectarian group” in the L’ Arche Trosly community which held “distorted pseudo-mystical beliefs” and had “a culture of deliberate secrecy”.
L'Arche International commissioned the independent report after the first claims of Vanier’s abuse emerged in 2020. Six researchers from the fields of history, sociology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis and theology, conducted 119 interviews for the report.
Access to Church archives revealed that Fr Philippe had been subjected to a trial by the Holy Office in 1953 on charges of “false mysticism”. He died in 1993. Vanier died in 2019.
Margron said the inquiry had demonstrated how secrecy, and “the great silence” by the Vatican had enabled the “gnostic delusions” of Vanier and Philippe as well as their impunity and abuse.
None of the abuse claims involve women with learning disabilities, or took place in L’Arche communities in this country.
The leaders of L’Arche International, Stephen Posner and Stacey Cates-Carney acknowledged their “institutional responsibility” for failing to spot, report and forestall the abuses.