When the sex abuse scandal broke about L’Arche founder Jean Vanier, I felt like I could finally take the duct tape off my mouth, after years of flinching when people described him as a living saint or L’Arche as heaven on Earth.

As a care scholar student and former L’Arche assistant, I think it’s worth considering how Vanier’s abusive approach informed an organizational culture that spiritualizes sexism and debases women’s work.

We also need to consider how the way care is organized and understood globally makes care workers, including those abused by Vanier, incredibly vulnerable.

Vanier was credibly accused of emotionally and sexually abusing six women, including live-in care workers, under the guise of spiritual accompaniment. The scandal isn’t just a story about the downfall of a charismatic spiritual leader; it’s about the way women — across contexts — are lured into care as a moral, feminine project, abused while we’re there, and told not to talk about it.

L’Arche International has been applauded for setting up the internal inquiry. They’ve feigned shock, distinguished Vanier’s sexed-up-spiritual-accompaniment from their own good, moral work, and emphasized that he didn’t abuse disabled people or, well, at least as far as they know.

In the report, Vanier was described as initiating manipulative and coercive sex with multiple women. One witness recalled him saying, “This is not us, this is Mary and Jesus. You are chosen, you are special, this is secret.” A witness testified that she “wrote to Jean Vanier to say that it was unbearable what he had done,” and that he responded by simply saying that he thought the letter was good. He positioned her as desperate for his approval.

This all happened in a direct care setting. This is worth noting, as conditions of work are conditions of care. The way we treat care workers shapes how care recipients are treated. Care workers are susceptible to labour exploitation, as well as to spiritual, psychological, physical and sexual abuse. Workers can be reluctant to speak out, particularly when dependent on the work for housing, income or residency status. The women Vanier assaulted were incredibly vulnerable.

I worked as a L’Arche assistant in the early 2010s. I moved in without a back up plan, and in recessional conditions, after being inspired by Vanier’s teachings. I wanted to live ethically and connect beyond myself. I felt special in the job interview — like I mattered. They asked about who I am and what I desire. They hinted that they could see me like no one else could, and that L’Arche would be an ideal space to express my unique capacity. They prodded at my desire to be good, pointing me in the direction of moral worth.

At L’Arche, I worked 60 hours a week in exchange for room, board and a piddly stipend. With low wages, low worker retention and conditions of extreme overwork, spiritual and emotional abuse were part of the job. We were coached in submissiveness, coaxed to forfeit our power and cued to say that we got more than we gave.

L’Arche’s power structure sets elite spiritual leaders apart from young workers, including working-class, racialized or migrant workers without citizenship. The meaning-makers write books and sermons, while the “help” work in bathrooms, bedrooms and kitchens. We were treated like stage props in their performance of community.

I feel sick that L’Arche exploited my desire to be good, blamed me for burning out, and denied my request to reduce my hours when I hit an emotional breaking point.

I regret that I went in hungry and looking for something — that I didn’t do more to set boundaries or say “no.” I also appreciate now that it’s hard to say “no” without an option to call in sick or without other housing or employment options. It’s hard to say “no” in a wider context where “good” girls care at all costs.

Taking care workers’ testimonies seriously comes with an invitation to reflect on how women have been herded into and entrapped in direct care roles. It also comes with a challenge to stop mystifying care work and to start cultivating conditions that honour care workers and recipients alike.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...