Jean Vanier

A commission inquiry by French scholars released the results of their two-year investigation, nearly 900 pages of information, on sexual and spiritual abuse by ...

Peter Birch, Bishop of Ossory, Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche Communities came to Kilkenny and personally became involved in the founding of the community. Part of the syllabus, we would teach children how we would feel about Mother Teresa, he was put up as an example of a good living life. His books are wonderful, if you talk to the parents of children, that’s not to take away what he has done, all the victims were all adults without intellectual disabilities. Cathy replied: "I was in university, my brother was ordained as a priest, we were a family of faith, my brother died in an accident, Dominic died, I was searching for something meaningful, I met someone who was in L’Arche in France, it was because of community, it’s inspired by the christian gospel." "I met Jean Vanier several times, we organised a public talk in the 80s in the dominican church in Cork, subsequently we hosted him twice in Maynooth, we had 300 people on that retreat, I was on retreats with him several times. "L’Arche changed my life, we came back to Cork when I got married, we started a group in Cork, the second L’Arche community in Ireland, I continued teaching, we were supporting the community, the two of us were working on salary, I left teaching, two years in L’Arche in Canada. Cathy told Joe: "I was looking for a more meaningful life, a person of faith, I heard about L'Arche in scotland, I went in the 1970s, I was there two years and met my husband who was another volunteer, he was Canadian. At the invitation of Rev. "I met him when he was working in Kilkenny, I did a retreat, I spoke with him, and he was charismatic. The caller revealed he had attended a Jean Vanier retreat and spoke highly of the work he had done. "The opposite of how he was presented in this book, I used this book up until 2020, the confirmation syllabus, I don’t think we should be using it, and should withdraw the book." "In our textbook every year was Jean Vanier, in many classrooms we would have read out the story of a lovely pious gentleman, we put him out as a walking saint to the children of Ireland.