Page 7 - C.A.L.L. #45 - Summer 2019

With the recent passing of Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche network of communities,
we publish a couple of articles on L’Arche – the idea, its history and its founder.

Disability: new documentary shows the blessing of

communal living for those with - and without - an

intellectual disability

29 March 2019
David Adams
https://www.sightmagazine.com.au

A global network of communities where people with intellectual disabilities live side-by-side
with those without, L’Arche has, at its heart, a simple premise: that relationships between
people is the key to living out the Gospel.

That concept of relationship lies at the heart of a new documentary film, Summer in the
Forest, based on the organisation’s founder Jean Vanier, and those who live with him in the
first community he established in the village of Trosly-Breuil in France.

“It’s purpose was to try and capture the relationship at the
heart of L’Arche, which is the relationship between the person
with and [the person] without a disability,” explains Eileen
Glass. Glass, a key member of the L’Arche community in
Australia, was the first Australian to hold the post of the

organisation’s Vice-International Leader – a role which saw her
serve as liaison between the film’s director Randall Wallace and
the organisation during the making of the documentary.

“I think it raises questions about…what is it to be human and
live a faithful relationship in this world that’s fragmenting,
that’s increasingly fearful of diversity which, in its
mechanisms, is pushing people into positions of loneliness.”

The origins of L’Arche (the name means “The Ark” in French)
go back to 1964 when Vanier - the fourth child of Georges
Vanier, a Canadian diplomat and Canada’s Governor-General
between 1959 and 1967 - found himself in France in search of a "different life" after leaving
behind a eight year career in both the British and Canadian navies.

Encouraged by a friend, Catholic priest Father Thomas Philippe, he invited two men with

intellectual disabilities – Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux – to leave the institution they were
living in in southern Paris and move into his home in Trosly-Breuil.

While that original community now involves more than 100 people living in 10 different homes
and work settings, the International Federation of L’Arche, which though founded in the
Christian Gospel includes people of other faiths, now boasts 5,000 members with more than
150 communities located on all five continents.