A report commissioned by L’Arche concludes that co-founder Jean Vanier sexually assaulted 25 women during his decades with the charity.
L’Arche internationale indicates on Monday that a commission’s investigation has identified 25 women who experienced, at some point in their relationship with Jean Vanier, “a situation involving a sexual act or an intimate gesture”, between 1952 and his death. , in 2019.
The report of the commission, which L’Arche had set up in 2020, indicates that the relationships between Vanier and these women “are all part of a continuum of confusion, control and abuse”.
Jean Vanier, son of former Governor General of Canada Georges Vanier, was a Canadian naval officer and teacher, before turning to Catholic-inspired charities.
He founded L’Arche in 1964 as an alternative living environment where people with intellectual disabilities could be full participants in the community, instead of patients.
PHOTO ARMAND TROTTIER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Jean Vanier, in 1979
In February 2020, L’Arche reported that its co-founder had manipulative sex with at least six women between 1975 and 1990, and used his power over them to take advantage.
The most recent report points out that none of the alleged victims had intellectual disabilities.