Brief comments on Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier (1928-2019) was founder of L’Arche, an international organization to help people with disabilities. He was also a philosopher and theologian, who is influential in helping me develop my thoughts on such concepts as forgiveness, which was a last main topic of a series of five Massey Lectures given in 1998 on the program Ideas, on CBC Radio One. I just did a search, and free online audio is available on his series Becoming Human, which has those five lectures. But he keeps coming back to his discussion of L’Arche, and how it is used to teach him about how we overcome our loneliness, fear and anxiety to become more fully integrated into our communities.

While I understand from a CBC report in 2020 revealed allegations of sexual abuse, I feel that this should not be allowed to overshadow his contributions to the humanities and theology.