Ireland’s former president Mary McAleese has written to the Pope saying she’ll leave the the Catholic Church if it is found the Vatican “failed to act to protect members of the L’Arche community” from the community’s founder Jean Vanier. In her letter to the pope (which she published on her personal website on 26 February) Read more
In one of my earliest memories, my father is warning me about a famous man, “Remember, he still puts his pants on one leg at a time.” 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 Read more
We continue to hear of incidents that more than suggest that Catholics – and, in particular, their bishops – have learned very little from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. 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 Read more
I keep a photo of Jean Vanier on my desk. It is painful to look at today. 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 Read more
L’Arche founder Jean Vanier has been accused of sexual misconduct. 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 – Read more
Jean Vanier who died earlier this year features a documentary being screened in New Zealand this month. 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 Read more
On Saturday 8 June, over 100 people joined with L’Arche (Kapiti), Mount Tabor (Auckland), Marralomeda (Christchurch) and Faith & Light communities to honour the memory of Jean Vanier who died in Paris on 7 May. Participants in the service included people from all Christian faiths with and without intellectual disability. A joyous atmosphere prevailed as Read more
When Jean Vanier first invited Raphaël and Philippe, two men with intellectual disabilities, to live with him in a tiny house in Trosly-Breuil, France, his parents, a prominent couple in Canadian diplomatic circles, thought the whole thing sounded a little strange. Jean called this new little community L’Arche, and it grew into a worldwide movement Read more
A national memorial service for Jean Vanier will be held at St. Gregory’s Catholic Church, Bishopdale, Christchurch on Saturday, June 8th at 11:00 am. 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 Read more
Pope Francis phoned Jean Vanier a week before his death. 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 Read more