A respected Catholic figure who helped improve conditions for the developmentally disabled in multiple countries over half a century sexually abused at least six women, a report produced for his French-based charity has found.

According to the report released by L’Arche International Saturday, the women’s descriptions provide evidence enough to show that Jean Vanier engaged in “manipulative sexual relationships” over a period from 1970 to 2005, usually with a “psychological hold” over the alleged victims. Vanier, a Canadian, died last year at age 90.

“The alleged victims felt deprived of their free will and so the sexual activity was coerced or took place under coercive conditions,” the report said. It did not rule out potential other victims.

None of the women was disabled, a significant point given the Vatican has long sought to portray any sexual relationship between religious leaders and other adults as consensual unless there was clear evidence of disability. The #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements, however, have forced a recognition that power imbalances such as those in spiritual relationships can breed abuse.

During the inquiry, commissioned by L’Arche last year and carried out by the independent, U.K.-based GCPS Consulting group, six adult, non-disabled women said Vanier had engaged in sexual relations with them as they were seeking spiritual direction.

According to the report, the women, who have no links to each other, reported similar facts and Vanier’s sexual misconduct was often associated with alleged “spiritual and mystical justifications.”

A statement released by L’Arche France Saturday stressed that some women still have “deep wounds.”

The report noted similarities with the pattern of abuse of the Rev. Thomas Philippe, a Catholic priest Vanier called his “spiritual father.” Philippe, who died in 1993, has been accused of sexual abuse by several women.

A statement from L’Arche International said analysis of archives shows that Vanier “adopted some of Father Thomas Philippe’s deviant theories and practices.” Philippe was banned from exercising any public or private ministry in a trial led by the Catholic Church in 1956 for his theories and the sexual practices that stemmed from them.

In a letter to the charity members, the Leaders of L’Arche International, Stephan Posner and Stacy Cates Carney, told of their shock at the news, and condemned Vanier’s actions.

“For many of us, Jean was one of the people we loved and respected the most. … While the considerable good he did throughout his life is not in question, we will nevertheless have to mourn a certain image we may have had of Jean and of the origins of L’Arche,” they wrote.

Vanier worked as a Canadian navy officer and professor before turning to charity work. A visit to a psychiatric facility prompted him to found the charity L’Arche in 1964 as an alternative living environment where those with developmental disabilities could be full-fledged participants in the community instead of patients.

The charity now has facilities in 38 countries that are home to thousands of people both with and without disabilities.

Vanier, who was unmarried, also traveled the world to encourage dialogue across religions, and was awarded the 2015 Templeton Prize for spiritual work, as well as France’s Legion of Honor. He was the subject of a documentary shown at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival called “Jean Vanier, the Sacrament of Tenderness.”

The allegations against Vanier reveal a major gap in the Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse allegations to date: Because he was a layman, he was exempt from the Vatican’s in-house sanctioning procedures for abuse, which only cover priests, bishops and cardinals. For these offenders, the worst penalty the Vatican can impose is defrocking — essentially, making the priests laymen again.

A similar case concerned the lay leader of a Peru-based organization, Sodalicio, who escaped Vatican justice for years even though there were credible allegations of sexual, physical and psychological abuse against him. The Vatican finally ordered him to live in isolation from his followers, a penalty that drew scorn from his victims given that it amounted to an all-expense-paid retirement in Rome.

SOURCE: The Associated Press, Sylvie Corbet

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Founder of the website Movieguide​ and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission, Ted Baehr, celebrated the popularity and box office successes of films featuring faith themes at the 28th annual Movieguide Awards. 

At the awards show, which will be broadcast on the Hallmark Drama channel on Monday, Baehr presented the highlights of Movieguide’s 2020 Report on the film industry. His report analyzes all movies from major and independent studios in regard to their box office performance and each film’s faith and family content across thousands of data points.

“When you see my charts this year, they’re better than ever,” Baehr told The Christian Post in an interview last month at the award show that honors faith and family content.

Baehr’s detailed economic analysis was shared with several Hollywood actors and filmmakers in attendance at the award show, including the creators of the “Lego Movie,” “The Simpsons,” and The Hallmark Channel, among others.

“We look at every movie from about 150 criteria, the criteria that everybody uses aesthetics, and genre theme and then we get on to the main stop biblical, redemptive, salvific [themes],” the media influencer said.

“Moviegoers prefer movies with conservative values,” the 2020 Movieguide report found.

The Movieguide awards honored the Best 2019 Movies for Families, Best 2019 Movies for Mature Audiences, and Epiphany Prizes for the Most Inspiring Movie and the Most Inspiring Television Program. The Faith & Freedom Awards were also presented for both film and television, as well as the Grace Prizes.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Jeannie Law

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Two Christians are reported to be among three people killed after suspected al-Shabaab militants attacked a bus in Kenya on Wednesday morning. 

Haji Abass, the owner of the Kenya-based Moyale Raha bus company, told The Associated Press that fighters suspected to be aligned with the Somalia-based group attacked the bus while it was carrying passengers to the capital of Nairobi from a market town near the Ethiopian and Somalian borders.

Abass said that the militants were in police uniform and tried to flag down the bus. However, the bus driver kept on going because he knew there were no police stops along the route.

At that point, the militants shot at the bus, flattened the back tires and injured the driver.

After the bus went into a ditch, militants allegedly pulled the passengers out and killed two non-Muslims and one Muslim. Two others were injured.

International Christian Concern, a United States-based advocacy organization, reports that the two non-Muslims killed in the attack were Christian men named Peter Kilnozo Musili and Kevin Onyango.

According to ICC, which confirmed the attack through a security officer based in northeast Kenya, the two men were executed because they could not recite the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada.

The Muslim man who was killed was named by ICC as Abdi Abinoor. ICC reports that Abinoor was killed for trying to protect the Christians.

The security officer told the nonprofit that the attack occurred in the town of Banisa in Mandera County, an area of Kenya near the Somali border with a large Somali ethnic population.

The officer said that the bus was carrying 47 passengers.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Samuel Smith

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The Basij group, a student group of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has threatened to destroy what many believe to be the ancient burial site of Queen Esther and Mordechai in Hamedan.

The threat comes after President Donald Trump announced his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

According to CBN News, the Basij group released a statement saying they want to tear down the tomb and replace it with a Palestinian consulate.

“We warn the United States and the Zionist regime … that the first act of fulfilling their filthy desires and the slightest attack on Palestine and the holy al-Quds (Jerusalem) means that they will no longer occupy a place as Esther’s tomb … we’ll turn it into a Palestine consulate and you will see the fulfillment of this promise,” their statement said.

Ali Malmir, the director of Hamedan’s tourism office, however, said earlier this month that the tomb would be impossible to destroy because the tomb is a cultural heritage building.

Meanwhile, the Alliance for Rights of All Minorities in Iran reported that the Basij group already attempted to raid the tomb last week.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a statement as well, saying they are “troubled” by the threats.

Source: Christian Headlines

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The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of BCNN1. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s).

Last week, actor John Rhys-Davies, best known for playing the dwarf Gimli in “The Lord of the Rings” films, gave a strong defense for Christianity.

Speaking to the Christian Post from the red carpet at the Movieguide awards, Rhys-Davies said, “We seem to forget that Christian civilization has made the world a better place… We owe Christianity the greatest debt of thanks that a generation can ever have…” he went on, crediting it for the ideas of religious liberty, free speech, and individual rights.

Rhys-Davies, who recently starred in an animated adaptation of “Pilgrim’s Progress” and is the lead in an upcoming biopic of Saint Patrick, said he often finds himself sticking up for Jesus in his line of work.

The strange part of this story is that Rhys-Davies is a self-professed “rationalist and a skeptic,” not a Christian. Yet he is still able to see how the faith of Christ’s Church, as author Alvin J. Schmidt puts it, “changed the world” for the better.

Rhys-Davis is just one of many skeptics, atheists, and secularists of late who reject the rhetoric of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and recognize the immense good the Gospel has done for the world. Whereas the so-called New Atheists slandered Christianity as being backward and poisonous, a new crop of unbelievers see it as beneficial, beautiful, and maybe even in some limited sense, true.

Take Douglas Murray, British journalist, political commentator, and author of the new book, “The Madness of Crowds.” Though a self-professed non-believer and gay man, Murray admits to admiring Christianity and “the positive role it has played in building Western civilization.” He even labels himself, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, a “Christian atheist.”

In a recent dialogue with Christian writer Esther O’Reilly on the “Unbelievable” podcast, Murray praised Christianity’s “revolutionary moral insights” such as the command to “love and forgive your enemies.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris

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(RNS) — A proposed bill that would prohibit parents from citing religious or philosophical beliefs when refusing to vaccinate their school-age children stoked uproar in Connecticut this week, with some protesting the legislation and others voicing support for immunizations.

According to the Hartford Courant, hundreds of demonstrators descended on the Connecticut capitol on Wednesday (Feb. 19) and Thursday to express both support and opposition to the bill, which was crafted by state legislators in the wake of the measles outbreak that rocked the New York Jewish community in 2019.

Some wore stickers that read “My Faith says Do No Harm” or waved signs with slogans such as “Our rights. Medical freedom. Religious freedom.” Others held placards that read “Vaccines work. They are safe. Everything else is a lie.”

Parents opposed the bill stayed inside the Capitol Wednesday night and into Thursday morning as debate over the issue raged, with some becoming emotional during testimonies.

Supporters of the bill — which would still allow for medical exemptions from immunizations for schoolchildren — say it is partially a response to an uptick in religious exemptions in the state. The state’s Department of Public Health estimated that 7,800 children had religious exemptions in the 2018-2019 school year, a 25% increase from the year before.

If passed, the bill would make Connecticut the sixth state to eliminate non-medical exemptions, joining California, Maine, Mississippi, New York and West Virginia.

Hundreds of pieces of public testimony have been submitted, many of which pointed out that religious freedom is a right guaranteed in both the Connecticut and U.S. Constitutions.

Source: Religion News Service

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