The Troubled Inheritance of Jean Vanier: Locating the Fatal Theological Mistakes

Abstract

Jean Vanier's life and teaching bore good fruit, but what is good was wrapped up from the very beginning with manipulative and abusive behaviors justified in theological language. For those of us who do not have access to the voices of the victims themselves, it is important to at least analyze the long-public writings of Fr. Thomas Philippe and Jean Vanier. Until now these were all that was available to those interested in the theology of L’Arche, and in them their erotico-mystical theology was hidden in plain sight. A close reading of these texts points to a deformed eschatology as the fatal theological doctrine Vanier inherited from Philippe. More precisely, eschatological concepts were deployed in order to declare traditionally prohibited sexual activities as licit, in being concieved as taking place beyond the mundane domain of everyday morality. A nuptial union taking place outside the ethics of normal Christian life brought affectionate union with God down into the contingency of everyday ethics in a manner that circumvented well-known church teachings about sexual ethics.