My father grew up in the 1920’s. He was a good athlete and an avid sports fan. He was also a good storyteller. So by the time I was six or seven I had heard about the 1919 “Black Sox Scandal” when eight ballplayers on the Chicago White Sox were found guilty of accepting bribes to throw the World Series. They were banned for life from big league baseball. At the end of that story, I heard the immortalized plaintive cry ascribed by some to a sports writer but by others to a brokenhearted youngster meant for the ears of the great left-fielder Shoeless Joe Jackson as the shamed ballplayers left the courthouse: “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” First hearing the story when I was about the same age as the heartbroken boy, I internalized his crushing disappointment in his hero.

The reason this lament came to be immortalized, utilized again and again every year since it’s first utterance, is because the human condition has never been able to outrun the seemingly inevitable occasion when yet one more hero falls from grace. I don’t know where you were Saturday when a man once considered an oak of righteousness fell in the forest. I am here to tell you, it did indeed make a sound—a loud, shock-induced, reverberating, wounded wolf-like mournful sound of disbelief and anguish—when it was reported that an investigation had found that the venerated Jean Vanier,1 French-Canadian Catholic spiritual guide, founder of L’Arche, teacher, and writer was guilty of sexual misconduct stretching across four decades. Say it ain’t so, Jean.

Like many, I am still reeling a bit from this news. Two Jesuit priests who were early mentors of mine, were personal friends of Vanier. Vanier came and spoke at our parish in the late 1970’s. These same priests rented a large house, became the legal guardians of two adult men who had been institutionalized for years, invited them and other non-disabled persons to live together in community. I shared meals with them. So, I have seen up close and personal some of the fruits of Vanier’s life, vision, and work. I have taught about Vanier for years, introduced numerous people to his story, the story of L’Arche, and his writings.

Since the late 1970’s, I have greatly admired Vanier, appreciated and ascribed to many of the foundational principles that run through his writings and talks: the inherent dignity of all persons, each one the image of God; the universal human yearning to be seen, known, valued, and loved; the deep desire to belong and to be in relationship; the paradoxical wisdom that the wound is the way (to embracing our humanness, to wholeness and holiness, to God), and perhaps the core characteristic of L’Arche communities, namely, the understanding that each and every person bears both gifts to be given and wounds to be tended. I especially have appreciated one insight, in particular: that the physically and intellectually disabled persons have the unique gift and power to be icons through which we see our own woundedness. Those whose brokenness is so visible and emotionally consequential, have no option but to show their vulnerability. They cannot hide it. And because of this, they have the unique ability to draw out and touch the brokenness of those of us who have no visible disability but instead possess the intellectual capability and proclivity for hiding our own inner woundedness.

In May of 2019, not long after he died at the age of 90, I wrote a tribute referring to Vanier as a gentle giant. I wrote: “He was a holy man who modeled an authentic, healthy, and credible holiness in and through the sacrament of his humanity and reverence for others, especially the most vulnerable or marginalized.” Many of these words catch in my throat now as I read them.

Knowing my own discrepancies, having been stripped long ago of any tendencies toward hagiographical hero worship, listening for thirty years to the intimate details of people’s lives in the confidentiality of spiritual direction, and having lived close enough to the ground to understand that on the whole humans are perfectly imperfect, I nonetheless have had a hard time wrapping my heart around this recent revelation. Upon reflection, I realize that my most immediate reaction when I heard of this breaking story about Vanier was not disbelief. Perhaps that alone is a sign of the times and a sad commentary in and of itself. My first response was deep sadness, a jolt of anguish to use a word from the lexicon of Vanier and L’Arche communities. After reading of the findings of a commissioned, independent investigation service, there is no reason to dispute the report. Accounts of Vanier’s abuse are well-founded and reliable. Six women (all unknown to one another) came forward to report sexual abuse by Vanier spreading out from 1970 – 2005 in the context of seeking help and spiritual counsel. The pattern was similar in all the cases starting with Vanier’s abuse of his position of power. Using his stature as an esteemed religious teacher and guide, psychological manipulation, aberrant theology and religious justification, and secrecy, he engaged in coerced, non-consensual sex with these women who sought his spiritual guidance.

What is most difficult for me is not wrestling with “Can this be true?” Nor is it trying to reconcile my previous perception of Vanier with the man described in the investigators’ report. The two can’t be reconciled if by reconciled we mean experience peace and tranquility with one another. The well-substantiated findings from the inquiry are totally incompatible with the man once considered “a living saint.” Apart from what is most troubling about this revelation—the violation and suffering of six women who came to him for spiritual counsel—there is the issue of Vanier himself, now deceased, but leaving a world-wide trail of tears.

So, what do we do? How do we respond? For me, how do I hold this man—whose life, work, and writings made him a major theological and spiritual influence of my life—without falling prey to toxic cynicism, protracted anger, the downward spiral of disillusionment with humanity and religion, and despair? Some have already wondered aloud whether the content of this announcement completely negates the good work Vanier did for over four decades and the profound positive affect he has had on so many people around the world? Are we to publicly strip him of his many awards and accolades like a Heisman Trophy winner forfeiting the prestigious trophy after being found guilty of receiving improper financial benefits?2 Do we imagine him not at the right hand of God but at the left hand of the satan? Is forgiveness in order or out of order?

These are the questions that have been launching their invasion on the beach of my heart? These are the still forming thoughts and responses little more than 72 hours out from receiving an email from a friend about the posthumous downfall of Jean Vanier.

Does the evil uncovered taint the good revealed throughout Vanier’s life? It does. Does the trauma and harm he caused others render false or meaningless the good he did and the truths he taught. It does not. Does the good he did and the truths he taught negate the evil he did and lessen the pain he caused? They do not. So what are we to do?

Certainly, over time more details will come out. But I think it will add tragedy to the already tragic situation if such information only serves to surface people’s prurient voyeurism, self-satisfying contempt, and self-righteous condemnation, but fail to allow the investigation to illuminate the common factors, circumstances, and causes of this plague of sexual abuse of which this is yet one more tragic case. Although it is beyond the scope of this reflection, we can be assured that an exploration of the common factors, circumstances, and causes will require more attention if we ever hope for a successful intervention and healing at the species level in a world where families, faith communities, neighborhood organizations, members of schools, businesses, corporations, governments, and countries are being poisoned from within by the abuse of power and the residual abuse of people through verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual violation.

So, again, what are we to do? How are we to respond? In regards to Vanier’s misconduct, I think it would be unwise to prematurely jump to the fallback position: he’s only human (the “only” betraying a misguided theological anthropology). Beginning here runs the risk of coming precariously close to excusing the offense and defending the perpetrator. Let’s be clear: to abuse another is not a synonym for being human. It is to violate not only the humanity of the other person, but also one’s own humanity. Theologically speaking, to sin (or in this case, to abuse) is not proof of our humanity, it is rather a contradiction of it. Therefore, to identify Vanier’s actions, in this case, as a sin, is to describe Vanier’s concrete choice to act inhumanely. Blaming sin on our humanity as if we were automatons and sin an unavoidable, done deal, is as embarrassing an explanation and as weak an excuse as Flip Wilson’s old quip, “The devil made me do it.”

At the practical level, I suggest the only adequate response is, first, to face squarely into the abuse and violence perpetrated by Jean Vanier, to name it for what it is—a grievous sin, an egregious abuse of power, a fundamental contradiction of the very principles about which Vanier so frequently spoke and wrote, the twisting of theology and spirituality to groom one’s victim and to justify to oneself the heinous nature of the violation and crime, and the infliction of affliction on real people he knew (in the sincerest place in his heart) to be images of God.

Second, we must avoid any tendency to minimize, excuse, or redact the disturbing findings of the investigation because it was a revered figure who did much good in his life.

Third, we must avoid reducing knowing how to feel about and respond to Vanier to a math game. If we allow the evil done to negate altogether the good done, we effectively demonize and condemn the man. Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who ministers to death row inmates and the victims’ families said, No person is defined by the worst thing he or she has ever done. But the opposite is true as well. We cannot exhaustively be defined by the best thing we’ve ever done either. After all, what good are ten, twenty, even fifty kindnesses offered to other people to the victim who was on the receiving end of the same person’s abuse? Do we simply measure the good done against the evil done, count up the deeds and minutes like beans on either side, and see which way the scales tip? I don’t think so. This view, tempting as it may be, is the wrong way to go.

Fourth, we must consciously and intentionally hold these two seemingly incompatible realities and truths together lest the truth of one blot out altogether the truth of the other. The question is how do we do that? How do we hold realities that appear to invalidate their counterpart? As suggested above, the temptation is to seek a way out of the dilemma, to relieve the discomfort by releasing the tension. By way of analogy, what is the meaning of Easter without the tension of Good Friday? Easter is the release of the tension that Jesus embraced on the cross, turning death into a passage into new life. But the tension, the paradox, the contradictions must first be held, and that is painful and requires great courage, faith, and grace.

Finally, we must consciously hold Vanier as we hold the brave survivors of Vanier’s malfeasance, in the grace and mercy of God. I don’t much like humanity’s penchant for abuse and exploitation. I also don’t much like that well-worn phrase “fall from grace.” But then, among the fallen, who would? Beyond personal wishful thinking, I don’t think grace is something we can fall from or fall out of. To say this is in no way to minimize or turn away from the severity of Vanier’s abusive actions but rather to say the familiar statement is based on a mistaken, transactional understanding of grace.

Grace is for the needy, the fallen, the disgraced. When we fail to be the man or woman God created us to be, when we fail to live in accordance with our deepest convictions, when we violate not just our values but people, real people, some whom we know and love, each one an image of God, it is not grace we fall from but ourselves, and who we really and truly are in God. When we fail, when we sin, especially when it overtly violates and hurts others, it is always simultaneously a violation of the one in whose image we are made and of ourselves as God has created and intended us to be. Grace is the gift of God. Grace is a nickname for God. Grace is the illogical, unreasonable, counter-cultural, unearned, unmerited, freely given, transformational, and extravagant love of God. Grace is the way of God. Grace is not a get-out-of-jail card any more than it is God looking away from evil or the minimization of wrongdoing.

God is the God of justice and compassion, and grace is the name for the truth that, as Rabbi Abraham Heschel puts it, “mercy has precedence over justice” and “beyond justice is [God’s] compassion.” Grace is what Father Gregory Boyle calls “the no matter whatness of God’s love.” It is not something we as humans deserve or earn or have the power to acquire. It is humans who have turned grace into something it is not, often exactly what it is not. It is humans who have commoditized grace, quantified it, reduced it to an award for good behavior. That’s not grace. But if grace is God, or inseparable or indistinguishable from God, or the heart of God, or the way of God, or the unconditional (though consequential) love of God, then, like its twin, mercy, I suspect grace is what we fall into when we have violated another, and God, and ourselves. If not, what hope is there for any of us?

In the end, Christians believe the balm of Easter is stronger than the sting of death. We trust that love is a greater power than evil, joy a more enduring truth than sorrow, healing deeper and wider than hurt, the grace of God more infinite than our moments of disgrace.

So how do we look at Vanier now, a man once only admired, revered, emulated, and loved? The only response that rings true to me is that we look at Vanier as God looks on him. Taking our cues from scripture and the experience and narrative of the household of faith, we can say, then, God looks on him with forthrightness, with the concern for justice, with deep sympathy, and compassion, with mercy and love. And in the end, paradoxically, with radical grace.

We unequivocally condemn the bad he did and the harm he caused. We denounce the deceit that allowed him to live for so long with such duplicity. We name his abusive behavior as reprehensible. And we grieve for him. We don’t bypass the disbelief, disappointment, sadness, or anger anymore than we skip the grief. We celebrate the good he did and the felicity he set in motion over the course of his life.

We pray for the healing of those who were directly or indirectly violated by his betrayal of their trust and his abuse of power. We are grateful for the women who came forward, who are more than “Vanier’s victims,” who, in truth, are the beloved of God, women of perseverance, preservers of dignity, signs of hope. We acknowledge the courage of these women, herald and celebrate it. We can only imagine the painfulness of carrying a secret about a man so universally esteemed knowing if revealed few would believe it. Their steadfastness is almost incomprehensible, their humanity inspiring.

We pray for these women’s healing and well-being.

We pray for those who knew Vanier personally, for his family and friends, for L’Arche members who revered him, the many people who loved and cared for him, learned from him, and now try to find a way to integrate this sad news into their relationship with him.

And we pray for Jean Vanier, that he had faced into and confessed his duplicity and destructive misconduct before he died, and in the hope he asked forgiveness, but regardless, we hope for his healing and wholeness through the grace and mercy of God in the life to come.

May we learn something good, something of immediate and eternal value from this tragic situation. May we do everything in our power to help put an end to such dehumanizing violations. Miserere  nobis .

1 Jean Vanier is pronounced in French zhawn vawn-yey.

2 After I posted this, I learned that the University of Notre Dame revoked two awards given to Vanier in the 1990’s. I will not be surprised if others follow suit.

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