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
Jean Vanier (90), who in 1964 founded the international federation L’Arche, has been awarded a Spiritual Solidarity Award from the Adyan Foundation, a Lebanon-based organisation for interreligious studies and spiritual solidarity. L’Arche communities are dedicated to creating and developing homes, programmes and support networks for people who have intellectual disabilities. The official letter accompanying the Read more
Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche communities, turned 90 last week. And on the occasion of the Sept. 10 milestone he decided to share a video message in English that proposes “ten rules of life to become more human.” Vanier, son of one of Canada’s late governors general, set up his first L’Arche community in Read more
Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche communities, has won the 2015 Templeton Prize, which is worth US$1.7million. L’Arche is a global network of communities where those with and without developmental disabilities live side by side. The network was begun in northern France in 1964 when Mr Vanier invited two intellectually disabled men to live Read more