Not too long ago, I was, for some reason, reading reviews on Amazon for a book I’d already read, the Autobiography of Marcel Văn. I didn’t read these reviews in much detail. It was for the most part more like glancing or skimming. One byline, however, caught my eye. The review was written by someone whose name I recognized. This person was in fact one of the other people (there really aren’t many of us, particularly in the English-speaking world!) who have dedicated themselves to spreading the message of little Văn online.

What I read, though, took me aback. The review recommended, for a first reading, skipping to the part of the book where the author meets Thérèse of Lisieux—that is, around page 567 for when Văn reads Story of a Soul or page 587 for when he starts to mystically converse with the saint as his spiritual sister. This is, you can imagine, quite a lot of material skipped over to come back to later. The final version of Văn’s Autobiography was written on 882 pages of exercise books (13 cm × 19 cm). The encounter with Thérèse is found just about the “golden ratio” through the book, I can grant the view that. And if you read the book to see how Văn was like Thérèse or to get essentially the same spiritual theology as Thérèse, but in a Vietnamese dialect, that is indeed an acceptable procedure. But I couldn’t help but feeling the suggestion was tone deaf.

From page 128 to page 711, things happen which should colour our entire reading and understanding of Văn. During this page range, we might as well not have the Autobiography as the editor (Father Antonio Boucher) and the publishers named it or the Story of a Vietnamese Soul one might draw from the parallels with Thérèse. For the middle two thirds of the manuscript we have quite plainly a Chronicle of a Clerical Abuse Survivor. Marcel Văn survives one form of abuse after another, from priests, catechists, religious-order tertiaries who live a communal life, and a teacher in a Catholic school. It is clerical abuse. He is a child. Some of the earliest incidents are sexual abuse or attempted sexual abuse (I think it is not entirely clear if the first attempt went beyond being attempted abuse, whereas all later events fall clearly into the category of attempts). Subsequent stories chronicle physical, emotional, psychological, conscience, and spiritual abuse. There are descriptions of psychosomatic manifestations, and Văn suffers an obvious moral injury that challenges his own sense of goodness and trust, which every subsequent extraordinary grace serves to relieve him of, in one way or another. I would even argue that the very manner, form, shape of his death (obviously not covered in the Autobiography) was a conquering of the disturbance of moral injury that was particular to him.

Marcel Văn is not a discount or derivative Thérèse, or a Southeast Asian one, or a soul even more little than hers. Well, he could be a couple of these things. But he is emphatically much more than this. I cannot stress this enough. And in the middle of the abuse crisis that we’re in, I can’t help but think it is incredibly tone deaf to portray Văn as just another Thérèse or her favourite little brother. What he is is a witness—perhaps the witness par excellence—to a form of genuine spiritual survival to clerical abuse. I am dumbfounded that someone could recommend skipping nearly all the narration of this abuse, indeed the most heinous parts of it, in a first reading of Văn’s life.

Granted, it might make some sense to skip to the part of the Autobiography where Văn, before encountering Thérèse but after enduring much abuse, discovers his mission of “changing sadness into joy” or “changing suffering into happiness” (page 436). I can see that. I myself have laid considerable stress on this aspect of Văn. If we start with that, then we could go into the depth of his suffering later, knowing that the transformation of it is the key to reading this little saint. This, then, would give Văn a unique voice. And it would preserve the priority of his suffering. But… to skip to where he meets Thérèse? I don’t know what this reviewer—who, I reiterate, is one of the main propagators of the message of Marcel Văn—was thinking.

So, I’ve taken on several projects, none of which is easy. The first project that I can explain is a thorough rereading of the complete works of Marcel Văn, extracting all the information needed for a detailed understanding of him as an abuse survivor, and then the writing-up of those findings in an accessible form. This is a big task. When it is done, it will be at least five separate, long, long, long, thoroughly researched posts, not to mention anything that might be yet more detailed still. I want to do this justice. God knows we need it.

The other project is still more nebulous. Faithful to Văn’s own call to be a “hidden apostle of Love,” I want there to exist some sort of network of contemplative prayer. Faithful to the inclinations of Văn’s heart, this contemplative prayer would be Eucharistic and preferably, when possible, be offered before the tabernacle, not monstrance. Faithful to his identification with the little way, prayer and sacrifice would be simple and small. Faithful to his status as a survivor, the prayer would be in union with and offered for abuse victims of all kinds within the Church (clerical abuse broadly considered, including that committed by priests, catechists, religious, and teachers in an officially religious environment, primarily Catholic but ecumenical in scope when the person praying has personal connections) and in support of those who have an active ministry to the survivors. And I don’t think this can be a primarily cloistered thing, because that smacks of removing oneself from the problem. Faithful to Văn’s attachment to the mystery of Nazareth, I dream that the people of this movement would be immersed in the lives of others. They would live like everyone else. They would offer this contemplative prayer immediately before and after Mass times, for say a quarter or half an hour each side. Somehow, even though largely silent, they would be visibly approachable, in some simple way marked and designated, within the parish setting, for anyone to talk to, so that people know, really know, that they can speak the truth and that this person is somehow vowed to listen to, honour, pray for, and offer sacrifices for victims and survivors. And that, wherever this ministry of presence, availability, and prayer is offered, it is offered with the knowledge and approval of the priest and/or bishop/ordinary, so that, even though clerical authority figures cannot be the visible touchstone of this prayer, availability, and presence (this would render the contact inaccessible for too many survivors), they too are nonetheless offering their commitment to it.

It sounds like a mad dream. I pinch myself, but I’m awake. How different would the Church be if it were realized? Every Eucharist remains intact. Nobody has to change anything. But the gathering of the community is surrounded by a relatively silent, but partly visible, ministry of presence to, availability to, and prayer for abuse victims and survivors. It is configured by a preferential option for those abused in a clericalized setting or by a clericalized person. And this becomes known. It becomes lived. The acts would be small. They would be Nazareth. But they would be a spiritual revolution. We would have the same Church, but a new Church. I dream, I dream, I dream. Can it be done?

At any rate, no matter what, Marcel Văn is a herald of a contemplative spirituality for survivors of clerical abuse.

In this, though, he’s not alone.

Consider also John of the Cross. On December 2, 1577, he was abducted by confreres and laypeople and placed in solitary confinement by the former. He endured that for nine months, then escaped. John of the Cross endured 24/7 psychological torture at the hands of clerics. This is the immediate origin of one of the best-loved of all contemplative writings, the Spiritual Canticle, according to Carmelite specialists, and it is popularly imagined, if perhaps erroneously, as the origin of the most famous of all contemplative writings, the Dark Night. Our understanding of John of the Cross is entirely enmeshed in the dark reality of clerical abuse. We cannot escape it. We can downplay it and react with mechanisms of denial. But we can’t escape it.

Consider Teresa of Avila. The amount of abuse of conscience and spiritual abuse she suffered is tremendous. You’d need a whole thesis to get into it all. Just to give two simple examples, there is the act of attributing the good offered to her by God to the devil; there is also the inquisition into her distant Jewish heritage. These are profound disorders of spiritual trust and conscience.

Almost everything the modern world knows about Christian contemplation was conditioned by clerical abuse. Or put another way, the diffusion of contemplative prayer in the modern world was one of God’s counter-attacks to abusers and a culture of abuse.

Is it time? Is it the moment for a spirituality for survivors of clerical abuse, lived not just by the survivors, but by us all? If we turn to the intercession of the saints, canonized or not, perhaps we will get a better answer. Above all on this litany of horror—my dearest, greatest, most little, most trustworthy Marcel Văn, pray for us!