Jean Vanier Disinterred to Be Crucified

Jean Vanier

There are of late charges of sexual impropriety against Jean Vanier.

The accusations against him were accepted as true by L’Arche, his foundation, “on the balance of probabilities.” This, to begin with, is not sufficient. One has the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty. This is especially true for the dead, who cannot defend themselves against such charges.

I think we are morally obliged to discount these reports, so far as they concern the reputation of Jean Vanier, or else be guilty of the sin of calumny.

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert strip, hosts a YouTube channel on which he comments on current events. He recently mentioned that, to his knowledge, anyone famous will have had multiple false charges of sexual impropriety lodged against them. It is automatic: claim that Elvis Presley raped you, and you get to share some of the fame and glamour of Elvis Presley. In the general population, someone is always sure to make the claim.

There is also a certain class of women who are drawn to celibate priests or married ministers, on the premise that, if they can get them to ignore their vows, this is a conquest, proving their desirability. Failing that, claiming to have done so is almost as good.

We have every reason to expect that there will be charges of sexual impropriety against Vanier without their being true. Six, over a long lifetime, would be a reasonable level of static. And we also have reason to believe that, if he was ever inclined to engage in sex, he would have no need to use compulsion or exploit his position to do so. His real experience was more probably having to resist attempts at seduction.

If he did not always resist, okay, he was guilty of fornication. Join the club. Even saints are not perfect, and have never been presumed to be.

The accusation that he was in some cases exploiting an “unequal power relationship” is also unreasonable. Given his international stature, any relationship available to him could be seen as an “unequal power relationship.” So does this mean he is obliged to have none? Nobody of his generation would have thought of such issues in any case: bosses marrying their secretaries used to be a typical romantic tale. Or patients marrying their nurses. To make this retroactively immoral is a violation of natural justice.

Again, the report is that “For some of the women, these relationships were experienced as coercive and non-consensual in nature.” One accuser is quoted saying “Was I consenting? I think at the beginning yes, but as time went on, the more I believe that I was not consenting.”

This is apparently a matter of opinion on their part. “Were experienced as.”

It is therefore plausible that Vanier’s honest understanding throughout was that they were consensual.

He might even have been feeling these women were coercing him. “Were experienced as.”

 Unless there is more than this, to pay any attention to such things is plain calumny.