[ Marcel Văn and Clerical Abuse | Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 ]

Marcel Văn was a survivor of clerical abuse. Yes, that Marcel Văn—the Vietnamese Redemptorist brother who had spiritual conversations with Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, who teaches a lot about her little way of spiritual childhood, who is the origin for some popular prayers for France, whose process for beatification is ongoing, who had interesting devotions to the souls in purgatory and for the benefit of children who die before the age of reason without baptism. That Marcel Văn. He was a survivor of clerical abuse.

The abuse was perpetrated by (in chronological order) a teacher in a Catholic school, catechists at a parish effectively functioning as a minor seminary, the priest stationed at that same parish, a Spanish mission priest at a second parish/juniorate, some women who were Dominican tertiaries, and a confessor and a superior in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer that he joined. What Văn endured encompasses sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, abuse of conscience, abuse of power, spiritual abuse, and the experience of a culture of disbelief, shaming, and coverup; he experiences all of this. The abuse starts when he is a child barely at the age of reason, but has follow-up events in teenage years and early adulthood. Marcel Văn was a survivor of clerical abuse. It affects his entire life. You can’t deal with his spirituality and holiness without accepting this.

I think that to have this said so forthrightly, and to dedicate a ten-part series of articles to the topic, will be either unpalatable or unexpected to many.

In the first place, there is no escaping the fact that Văn’s very first biographer in Europe, Marie-Michel Hostalier, has actually been expelled from the clerical state by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith because of sexual abuse of adults.[1] It remains to measure the damage and distortion of having a canonically disciplined abuser being one of the first interpreters of the life of a clerical abuse survivor. Carefully and thoroughly assessed or not, though, we must know that an abuser literally controlling the narrative of an abuse survivor cannot have been beneficial for the truth. It cannot be beneficial for the truth.

Even among less problematic authorities, however, there is—pardon my language—a lot of crap to cut through in the literature on Marcel Văn. For example, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, whom I do respect a great deal, speaks in his preface to the Conversations of “the unhappy experience of the presbytery of Hữu Bằng.”[2] These words were, in the cardinal’s defense, written in early 2001, some months before Spotlight. But that’s still—and here I don’t ask pardon for my language because it is theologically precise—one hell of a euphemism for five years of clerical abuse of a minor. I pray to God Cardinal Schönborn would not write these words today.

Nor, for that matter, can we say that “the ordeals which dogged the life of this young man” can be sufficiently well summarized as “physical aggression, humiliation, separation, rejection, persecution because of Jesus’ name,” as Archbishop Renato Boccardo writes in the preface to another volume of the complete works.[3] This list is clearly incomplete, and the further we are into the abuse crisis when this kind of thing is written, the more avoidance of the obvious becomes intolerable.

Moreover, it won’t do to characterize what Văn survived as “child abuse” and stop there. While it is abundantly true that there was at a later date abuse in the family, all Văn’s troubles start in some very specific clericalized settings. Whereas his spiritual big sister and constant inspiration Thérèse might have been “astonished” at the idea of praying for priests, whom she “believed purer than crystal” (Ms A, 56r)[4] and retained some vague notion that professed religious and “great sinners” are mutually exclusive categories (Ms A, 80r–80v), Văn was never under any such illusions. He knew people who were. That made his trauma and moral injury sink their teeth deeper. But he himself was never deluded about the clerical or religious state, because experience was his teacher. We need to use the words clerical abuse, not to exhaust the experience of Văn, but to capture the original context of abuse in his life story, as well as the aspects that re-occurred, as I will show, even when he was a professed religious.

Throughout this series of ten articles, I will examine the entire spiritual experience of Marcel Văn as undetached from his experience of clerical abuse. My intention is to show that Văn develops, in a way that, to the best of my knowledge, no one else ever has, the spiritual resources for a contemplative spirituality for survivors—both for survivors themselves to live, and as a preferential option everyone else can exercise for victims and survivors.

This is a treasure Văn gives to the universal Church. As Jesus says in the Conversations, the Autobiography Marcel writes “will serve to make known the love that I have for all souls as well as for you” (Conv. 23)[5] because he speaks “to all souls” (Conv. 58). We can always take this in a general sense. But I intend to show that the love it demonstrates towards those who are “weaker than the saints, your brothers and sisters” (Conv. 22), not in a general sense, but in many of the ways that Văn himself was made weak: through suffering and surviving clerical abuse. If Jesus says to Marcel, “I have never seen a soul weaker than yours” (Conv. 235), we should, I think, assume that this is not just some innate characteristic fixed genetically or epigenetically, as if Văn’s body alone, not his soul, were the subject matter. The weakness in question is evidently a function, somehow and to some degree, of personal history. And with Văn, that personal history is marked by extensive clerical abuse.

In order to be able to speak freely about Văn’s spirituality in subsequent articles, it is first necessary to provide a sure foundation. To that end, this first article is devoted exclusively to a catalogue of the abuse he experienced.

Perhaps all the detail I provide will seem excessive, even voyeuristic. In response, I will simply say, if the other people devoted to Marcel Văn hadn’t done such a good job covering up the obvious, I wouldn’t have to harp on about it in such a dense, hard-going article. Moreover, it may be useful for survivors to know that someone else, someone holy, someone they can pray to, has experienced this particular horror that they know too. It may be useful for readers of the rest of the series to understand where Marcel’s thoughts and reactions come from. It may help largely uninvolved people to understand that yes, there are these kinds of clerical abuse, and that yes, they are forms of abuse with lifelong repercussions.

There’s a strong chance that most people will want to skim through this, rather than get into all the detail. This is a long post. That’s understandable. But it is necessary to document every last bit of this—without remorse for doing so. Even then, what I am saying is obviously highly condensed. This catalogue is not exhaustive. It is only the tip of the iceberg. What is experienced in the heart is infinite compared to what can be captured with words decades later.

The following sections are arranged not chronologically, but by topic, for ease of reference, meditation, and study.

Sexual abuse and attempted sexual abuse

When he was seven, Văn moved to Hữu Bằng, some distance from his hometown of Ngăm Giáo, to live in a presbytery. This was a common situation for aspirants to the priesthood at the time in Vietnam. There were other children and teenagers there, as well as the priest of the village and some catechists. The catechists were essentially men who had left the seminary but who were unable to reintegrate into Catholic society and marry, because at the time those who left a vocation after trying, however slightly, were subject to a kind of throwaway culture. It is from the catechists that Văn’s experience with sexual abuse originates.

The story of this part of Văn’s life is not quite clear. In the narrative of Father Antonio Boucher, Văn’s lifelong spiritual director with the Redemptorists, the offending catechist, whose name was Vinh, “made several attempts to molest him, but Van succeeded in resisting him” (SH 8).[6] Then at a later stage of this ordeal, Văn “resisted him with all his strength despite the threat of being buried alive” (SH 8).

The survivor himself describes the initial event as follows: “One day, after I had just arrived at the priest’s house, he used me to commit an action against the sixth commandment, but, using my willpower, I resisted energetically” (A 134).[7] On this occasion, the catechist threatens to bury the boy alive if the parish priest should find out about what happened. Some time later, the author tells the reader that this catechist “wished to use me once again to commit a bad act. I resisted with all my strength in spite of his threat to bury me alive” (A 143).

It is for me not apparent that these two accounts say the same thing. In Father Boucher’s version, it is clearly stated that none of the attempts to commit sexual abuse against Văn “succeeded.” Evidently, from such an experience, there would be a lot of trauma, moral injury, and whatever other psychological phenomena we learn about as human science develops. But attempted rape remains a different experience from rape. In Văn’s own account, however, I’m not sure things are so obvious. What does it mean to “resist energetically” with “willpower”? Can that be a euphemism for saying willpower did not succeed in thwarting being physically overpowered? Is that why the catechist “used” him, not tried to use him? Or does Văn just mean that sins of the heart are still using someone?

I think Văn is vague and ambiguous. That is totally understandable. He is talking about something horrific. Nobody needs to know everything. It is by right his secret to keep, even from his director of conscience. But that doesn’t change the fact that Father Boucher’s account says something more clear-cut than what Văn’s does. His version makes Văn “physically clean.” It satisfies that insistent compulsion to paint saints as those who resisted rape unto death, like Maria Goretti—perhaps not without significance someone Marcel had a devotion to (see, e.g., OWP12).[8] I don’t know where Father Boucher comes up with that assertion. Perhaps there is something in the Vietnamese manuscripts that he had access to that don’t make it into the translations. But then again, he was their first translator. It’s quite odd.

Even with this ambiguity, it is still certain that Văn was the victim of sexual abuse in a clericalized setting, from a clericalized person, when he was a minor, and there were threats against his life if the sexual violence were to be exposed. The abuse may have initially “succeeded” at a physical level, or it may not have. Regarding later times, both Father Boucher and Văn are in accord: there was no “success.” At every attempt, Văn always maintains that his willpower resisted. This won’t prevent him from feeling moral injury and all the pain of being unclean, dirty, despicable, and unrecognizable. But he does assert the fact of the abuser, not the survivor, being the perpetrator and the one with the truly messed up conscience. Whatever effects he feels, at the most profound level, Văn’s conscience is clean. He didn’t do it. It was done to him.

Physical abuse

Văn’s experience with physical abuse is massive. It could be an entire article to itself. I will give the overview as quickly as possible, for this is the area in which society has made the most progress and we are least likely to doubt the evil and the aftereffects nowadays.

The trouble starts, again, with that same catechist at the presbytery of Hữu Bằng (A 135–143; SH 8). When the sexual abuse failed, this twisted, demonic authority figure persisted in calling the young Văn to his study, ostensibly for training in “the perfect life,” in the name of which he proceeded to make the child strip naked, lie on the ground, and be beaten with a cane—not least, of course, after gently enquiring after his family, his health, his sleep, and his vocation. The emotional rollercoaster of hot/cold and the tried-and-true method of grooming were evidently known to this child abuser.

This section of the Autobiography recounts disturbing details about how the caning was administered, when, how much, and what the child “owed” each time for being unable to complete the “required” regimen at each encounter. It is only when a linen-maid sees evidence of the bleeding on Văn’s clothing that a stop is put to this. Surprisingly, she seems to understand and takes it to the proper authority, Father Nhã, who is the parish priest. He then deals with the matter. It stops. However, the priest is not very bright or circumspect. He leaves for another town for some time, and when the cat’s away, the mice play. All the catechists gang up on Văn and beat him more, through a ritual of psychological questioning and challenging. Again, as with the sexual abuse, Marcel insists: “The devil saw clearly that I always resisted energetically his oppression” (A 143). In other words, I am not guilty of this. Whatever wounds, physical and psychological, I may bear, now and in the future—I am not guilty. I didn’t do this. I was done to me.

Physical abuse took many forms after this. Văn was “underfed” yet made to do “the same work as a male adult” (A 159; cf. SH 9)—the latter condition repeated during the brief stay with the Dominican tertiaries (A 331). Lack of shoes, clothing, blankets, and food was endured by all the aspirants while the parish priests “wanted for nothing” (OWV 794–796). Văn personally suffered hunger, blows, and cold at the presbytery (A 167). Not even the “good guys” refrain from physical abuse of minors in the world of presbyteries and minor seminaries in the Vietnam of those days. An old catechist, who generally followed the rule properly and who was brought back to deal with the boys after they wrote letters to the bishop to complain of how they were being treated, becomes even more extreme than some of the others: “Once the catechist was angry, the victim became like a lump of inanimate and insensible earth that he would hit and hit without counting the blows, until he himself had no strength left” (A 232).

It not being bad enough that catechists had treated him this way, he suffered blows from the Vietnamese parish priest at Hữu Bằng (e.g., A 276). Sometimes the cane was given for anything that went wrong, like a broken basin or a sanctuary lamp that went out (A 172–173). Disturbingly, the parish priest even had to be restrained from caning Văn when he had fallen and dislocated his knee while performing an assigned duty (A 195, 200, 209–210). Another time, Văn was afflicted with a “volley of blows” upon voicing his sense of being called to the priesthood yet being treated as a slave; thereafter there came a wave of “greater cruelty towards me, considering me to be inferior to a house dog” (A 222). Standing up makes it worse. Marcel knows this dynamic well. The name of a dog is actually used in conjunction with beating itself when Văn returns to the presbytery after running away (A 487).

The dynamics are broad, though. It’s not just one presbytery. Physical abuse continues with a Spanish priest at Thái Nguyên (A 284). All this evidently left a lifelong mark on Marcel, whom we can quote as follows:

When I was small, I did not like going to church because I was afraid of being beaten. And it was the same for all the other children; if they dozed a little, they were beaten. Jesus said that it is never necessary to beat children. The Blessed Virgin also said: “If the natural law forbids the maltreatment of animals, with what greater reason does it forbid the beating of children.” (Conv. 762)

Similar remarks occur across the complete works (To his father, 6 Oct 1946; To Lê, 9 May 1948; OWV 778–779, 783, 817–821, 910–911).[9] In a related passage, Văn says of elderly men beaten by missionary priests, “even if the blows received make them suffer little physically, it remains that in their hearts they receive a deep wound” (OWV 833–834). This alerts us to the fact that bodily dimensions are not independent of psychological and spiritual ones.

Emotional/psychological abuse

Emotional and psychological abuse is as pervasive in Văn’s life story as it is difficult to isolate and interwoven with everything else. It also starts earlier.

The first experience of the abuse of the human psyche starts when Văn is sent to a Catholic school in his hometown (A 108–114; OWV 817; SH 6). Marcel says it shouldn’t even be called it school, because it was more like “a children’s concentration camp” (A 109). The words that come out of the teacher’s mouth are vile. He devises strange and indecent punishments, like making boys crawl on the floor between the legs of girls or vice versa, while he laughs at them loudly. While Marcel’s own parents did not get denounced to the parish priest or the bishop for siding with their children about this kind of behaviour, he knows of some who were. Indeed, more generally, he knows what’s up and calls it out as evil “all the more so because it was known as a totally Catholic school” (A 113). It is abuse in a clericalized setting. It is clerical abuse. It eats him up inside until he becomes depressed and physically ill and unable to go to school any longer. He has to be withdrawn from classes.

Of course, there is plenty of this kind of abuse at Hữu Bằng also. Even when the parish priest is trying to stop the physical abuse, he commits psychological abuse; he has Văn stand naked in front of the catechists and asks who is responsible for the damage to this child’s body (A 140). When the priest is away, the catechists declare that the boy “had the audacity to appear unclothed before them,” use smutty language about him, and call a mock tribunal to judge him (A 141). In the aftermath, they make him eat with the dog (A 142).

The parish priest is of course better, but not much. He too afflicts Văn with insults, affronts, injustice (A 167). Throughout any happenings, Văn is never permitted to complain (A 169). Of course, while the catechists are coarse, the parish priest is more refined about it; he “never used bad language, as many people do, but his reproaches were not less gross and scornful” (A 224). Under this priest’s watch, it was also incumbent on Văn to work with the ducks in the pond. The way he has to do it, though, is emotionally abusive. He’s not given any clothes to wear and isn’t allowed to use his own; “it was blameworthy that they obliged me to work naked in this manner… I felt totally ashamed when someone saw me in my nudity. I often cried because of it.” (A 243). The abusive effect is apparent. If a child is crying from being exposed naked to others, what is being done is seriously evil. Working conditions were persistently abusive like this and in different ways. Văn describes life as “differ[ing] in no way from that of prisoners condemned to hard labour,” and recalls that they were “treated according to everyone’s whims” (A 319). I would stress here, if it doesn’t jump out, the arbitrariness of treatment. This is deeply abusive, particularly at any stage where, for whatever reason, stability is needed.

Some forms of emotional abuse are particular to cultural context or exacerbated by cultural context. The priest openly “despised” and “dishonoured” Văn’s family to his face (A 305; cf. A 400). This is something that would be hard on any child, but even more so in East or Southeast Asia. However deeply the pain might resonate in a typical North American of Western European context, this needs to be multiplied considerably to understand the effect on someone culturally conditioned the way Văn was.

When he arrives at their house as a runaway from Hữu Bằng, the Dominican tertiaries and their superior also insult him overwhelmingly (A 331). This occurs immediately after he had escaped from another situation of abuse, forcing tears from Văn. The goal was evidently to get the child to return whence he came—but that was itself a situation of pervasive abuse. They can’t try to send him back there. They have no right.

One might also append to the category of emotional abuse the treatment Văn received for three months from the Dominican superior at Quảng Uyên. The candidate for the priesthood had already decided to leave for the Redemptorists, but he dared not say anything because, lending an ear to the tertiary superior, the priest kept abusing Văn with the names “hypocrite,” “miserable so-and-so,” “irremediably lost,” “proud,” “wretch,” and so on. It was “hell.” Eventually, Văn asked permission to leave and was treated scornfully; he was only granted leave a week later, but the priest proceeded by actually kicking him out, not allowing him to go, thus compromising his reputation (A 688–698; To Tế, 26 Aug 1951). Indeed, “I can state that without divine intervention I would have given way to discouragement a long time prior” (A 690). Although by this point, Văn had grown up a lot and become much less vulnerable, thus reducing the short- and long-term impact of others’ actions on him, the treatment he received at this time still qualifies as clerical emotional abuse. Văn himself calls it a system of “absurd abuses” (A 712). The latent abuse even manifests in him in psychosomatic symptoms like the sensation of spinning and an inability to properly stay standing (A 697). Whether an indication of cumulative effect or because this particular event itself attacked something too strongly, the symptoms should arrest our attention and concern. Psychosomatic disturbances of this kind are severe reactions.

Abuse of conscience, abuse of power, and spiritual abuse[10]

As with psychological and emotional abuse, it often doesn’t make much practical sense to separate abuse of conscience, abuse of power, and spiritual abuse. They are different things. But in the case of clerical abuse, they are deeply intertwined. They are also arguably some of the most harmful parts of Marcel’s experience. They more immediately affect his ideas about himself and his own goodness, i.e., moral injury.

Perhaps the earliest clear instance of this species of abuse occurs, as so much does, at Hữu Bằng. When the catechists assemble their tribunal, they examine the “conscience” of little Văn (A 144–148; SH 8). One focus of their attacks is knowledge of the Eucharist. Bearing in mind that Văn is seven or eight, any normal person knows not to expect much. Yet he’s expected to instruct the catechists on the sacrament and explain in detail how he prepares himself to receive. They issue a verdict. He is forbidden to receive Holy Communion. Evidently, this is a usurpation of power—an abuse of power. The band of catechists are not the priest by any means.

Next, not satisfied with taking the Eucharist from him, these catechists try to deprive Văn of prayer (A 151–152; SH 8). They confiscate his rosary. Văn adapts by counting “beads” with black beans that he moves from one pocket to another. The catechists take these. He shifts to tying ten knots on his corded belt and uses that instead. It’s taken away. He’s even told, after being slapped around, that this was impolite and irreverent towards the Blessed Mother; it’s a belt for your trousers. Ultimately, Văn had to use his fingers to count—and by God’s grace kept them all. In this story, abuse of power (taking things away without reason) colludes with spiritual abuse (deliberate deprivation of means of prayer, blaming him for using the only thing he has left to count his Hail Marys). No doubt Văn’s conscience was assaulted too.

There is also the matter here of Văn being reduced to “the status of a slave” (A 167; cf. A 456; SH 9). During a time of sudden material difficulty, the children, but especially the small ones like Văn, were overworked to the point that “this situation had killed any spirit of charity” (A 171). As this persisted, hardly with any justification, Văn experienced the lack of care for proper treatment not only as an assault on his human dignity, but on what he felt his vocation to be: “I found this shameful and hurtful, because in these circumstances my priestly vocation was nothing more than pure irony” (A 221). There would be a deep, horrifying cognitive dissonance at work here. He came to the presbytery to prepare for the path towards priesthood. He was converted into the servant of the priest instead. It became useful to the priest to treat him this way. His education in any proper sense was stopped. This is like forcing someone to live a lie. Internalizing such events, as is inevitable for any thinking being, is deeply harmful. At a slightly later point in the narration—after a little bit more internalization, alas!—the truth is spoken with remarkable, but distressing, clarity: “All I was able to learn at that presbytery was that children were compared to dogs, and that the young candidates for the priesthood were only ‘boys’ [i.e., slaves] useful to the parish” (A 537).

Another matter that abused Văn’s conscience was the need to “steal” from the parish and from the parish priest himself in order to fulfil orders and demands that were otherwise impossible to fulfil, and which would have had consequences had they not been fulfilled. There was no way to meet what was required of him by the priest. He would be harmed if he didn’t do so. To save himself, he “stole,” though whether this is really stealing is another question altogether. The “victim” was the very person making the unreasonable demands or the institution he watched over:

Often it was not easy to steal from the parish priest. Usually, I had recourse to the Blessed Virgin. After having gone to her and made clear to her all the misfortunes of my life, I approached the offerings box and looked for a means of extracting some coins. If I had been caught in the act. I would have been dealt with as a robber, but in the eyes of the Blessed Virgin I was innocent, since it was with her permission that I dared to take this money. Each time that I extracted money from the Blessed Virgin’s box I found it easy, and all passed smoothly. (A 182)

Văn is pained at this, not because he thinks himself guilty, but because he knows the parish priest “would have treated me as a thief but, before God and my conscience, I was not guilty of any fault” (A 180–181). Văn clearly uses the word “conscience.” He is describing its being clean. But in converse, this means the pressure that the priest is applying is an abuse of the same. It’s abuse of conscience.

At this point, since we are narrating things that are spiritual, of conscience, and of power, I want to quote a bit more from Marcel than I have done in other sections. It is relatively easy to understand the sheer horror of sexual and physical abuse, even emotional and psychological abuse, from a factual narration that does not draw upon the victim’s own words. Often, though, it is almost impossible to capture what more spiritualized abuse does to a person’s soul, without listening to exactly what that person says in their own words. We need to start quoting Marcel more.

Here is Marcel speaking of the presbytery at Hữu Bằng in general terms:

I want to say that, for those young people who entered it with a view to the priesthood, the presbytery at Hữu Bằng was a prison. There was there only sin and punishment, but it seemed that the punishments were reserved only for those who did not wish to follow the path of sin. That is why I still wish to call it a prison. (A 300)

I do not know what to add to this. It is chilling. Evil is rewarded, and good in punished. Life is a prison. The conscience is beaten to a pulp. One’s sense of moral self is nearly lost. Or, to put it another way: “To go into a holy house and live like devils! Who could tolerate such an abuse?” (A 497). Note that Marcel knows to use the word “abuse,” as uncommon as it was then compared to today.

While still quoting Marcel, one comment is particularly damning:

I found it much easier to practise virtue whilst begging than whilst stretched out beside a pile of superfluous rice at the presbytery, where people were much wickeder and more dangerous than people in the world outside. It could be said that they wore a mask of virtue to devour the inheritance of people of good faith. (A 395–396)

And another:

Truly, these young aspirant instead of finding in the presbytery a school of virtue, found only a prison and ill-treatment. With such methods, how could men be formed? (OWV 795)

All you can do in such a situation is survive. You cannot grow, except by the miracles of God. “Spiritual abuse” is a more than apt description. It doesn’t cover everything. But it is sorely needed to be spoken clearly.

Some particular results of being treated like this and being deprived of material necessities led to individual moral corruption. On cold nights, blankets and mats were insufficient, and despite regulations demanding an individual bed for each, it sometimes happened that they shared. Thus, “many boys contracted habits contrary to good behaviour. I have seen it with my own eyes, but without understanding,” writes Marcel. “If one asks oneself where this corruption comes from, I think no answer is necessary” (OWV 796). It is plain that this has disturbed Marcel, even though he didn’t fully understand what was happening at the time and didn’t participate himself.

The overall result of the total environment of abuse was that Văn came into a state of personal, social, and spiritual isolation. First this process operates by severing links in the common chain of causes:

In truth, I could never have imagined a house of God corrupted to such an extent. The priest’s house in Hữu Băng had become a school in selfishness where no one could rely on anyone, no matter who. Those who had a modicum of humanity, of charity or of virtue were ignored. They were no longer paid any attention. They were repulsed at every turn, which made them selfish and unhappy like everyone else. (A 269–270)

Now, I don’t think it’s quite right that these people became truly bad. Marcel maintains his general moral goodness. But it is true that they were in practical terms isolated. Every person becomes emotionally isolated from each other like a nineteenth-century atom. There’s no possibility to enact any support systems. There’s no choice. There’s no one to turn to. It’s clever how the mechanisms of isolation can be imposed. Implications are not just social. They become spiritual:

In those days all I knew was to offer myself, me, his little friend [i.e., Jesus’]. I could only express my feelings towards him by a loving glance, filled with an ardent desire to be liberated from the yoke of this cruel idea. I had very often such a wish to unite myself to Jesus that I would burst out sobbing, not understanding why I was always told that I was not worthy, and Jesus was not happy. Jesus was the only one able to understand me at that time. (A 173)

Marcel’s thoughts are juxtaposed strikingly. In one sentence, he recalls Jesus not being happy with him—or so he is told. Yet in the next, he asserts that Jesus was the only one to understand him at that time. They cannot both be true. Văn cannot have thought them both true at the time. What this is is some sort of mental scission forced onto the victim from outside spiritual forces. But at the same time, it is the victory, however partial, of the survivor. His unworthiness, his stain, his evil is a lie of the devil—and the human devils uttering it and creating physical, social networks that reinforce it. Yet the truth is different. Falsehood is lodged in his psyche, but truth exists in his heart. The generation and maintenance of this psychological disjunction is abusive.

There is evidence that spiritual abuse is what plagues Văn the most. It inflicts a moral injury. It pervades everything he experiences in the way of abuse. This can be seen, I think, from the following story. When he meets, in some mystical way, Saint Thérèse some years after having left Hữu Bằng, Văn is still concerned that the sins of others have made him a bad person: “When I was small, I heard my mother teach me many things about God and perfection, but during my stay at Hữu Bằng a thousand torments were used to divest me of all my beautiful thoughts” (A 594). Thérèse asks him whether he has ever approved as good what “these inhuman creatures” did. Văn replies:

No, I have never approved of them in such an insane manner. Neither have I ever lost confidence in God, since, if I had abandoned God, who then would I have been able to follow? Nothing was more painful to me than to notice in my relations with God that there was a sort of veil which separated me from him. (A 595)

Upon hearing this, Thérèse assures him that

the cruelty of these inhuman creatures towards you should be considered as nothing more than a veil or layer of dust covering all your beautiful thoughts of which it was absolutely impossible to divest you. And thanks to your sincerity, this layer of dust has already been completely removed. (A 595)

He is not what was done to him. How many times already have we heard Marcel say this. Yet he doesn’t fully believe it until it is conscience, until it is knowledge with another. What kind of intolerable evil is inflicted upon him, then, when he is isolated by the machinations of those who treat him with hatred and indifference. It stops short one of the necessary ingredients to healing.

Finally, to close this section, I want to note unambiguously that spiritual abuse, abuse of conscience, and abuse of power do not end in childhood for Marcel. Clerical abuse and child abuse overlap for him. On a Venn diagram, the largest part of each is in the overlap. But we can’t say that clerical abuse is merely a subset of wider experience of child abuse in this story, thereby treating child abuse as the only primary category and discarding discussion of clerical abuse as a topic in its own right. That is an easy way out. It is the comfortable route for a coverup culture. And it is factually incorrect.

Marcel ascribes the name “abuse of spiritual power” to some behaviour he met as a postulant (OWV 782). Not a few of the coadjutor brothers would pronounce on the vocations of newcomers. Since this fell outside their purview and could affect the lives and endurance of those gossiped about, he declared it an abuse of the position of one inside the Congregation against those who were knocking at the door. He’s probably right. But this more minor abuse was far from the worst he encountered inside.

Marcel’s two years in the Saigon community of the Redemptorists, immediately before he went to Đa Lạt for his second novitiate, were incredibly difficult. They were genuinely abusive. Father Boucher’s short biography largely skips over this period, inexplicably seems to paint it as frictionless, and goes so far as to use saccharine, too-easily-edifying language (cf. SH 36). I can’t do anything of the kind. I can’t exonerate the Redemptorists. It’s not possible to whitewash what happened. This was a new period of abuse, making Văn raw all over again.

Fortunately, there was some preparation for what was about to happen. Jesus didn’t leave Marcel out to dry. In some mystical way, he tells him while at Saigon:

Be generously forgiving to the fathers who know only how to lead an idle life and abuse the brothers and order them about as if they were just servants. Know that they will be subject to a very severe judgement. Whatever the situation, you must not judge them yourself; content yourself with putting up with everything joyfully. Each one has his own responsibility in the work of the salvation of the world; but he who is not faithful to his duty commits an injustice and he will have to submit to chastisement. (To Father Antonio Boucher, 16 Jul 1950)

In light of this experience and probably bearing in mind his enforced previous status as the slave of the presbytery, Marcel concludes: “I am less surprised now concerning the confreres who have left us in the past. Yes, really, part of the responsibility, if not to say the major part, is imputable to the superiors’ manner of behaving.” (To Father Antonio Boucher, 23 Jul 1950) Marcel has been given a mission of grace to stay and forgive. But he understands and does not judge those who cannot do so. He realizes that they may simply have been like he was when he repeatedly escaped from Hữu Bằng. And who is he to judge? Nay, who is anyone?

Now, while the priests in this community were indeed abusive about work to be done, what happens at Saigon isn’t only general workplace abuse of power in temporal matters. Marcel’s conscience and spiritual dignity are attacked too; power is abused regarding private, spiritual things. While at Saigon he puts up for a short time with a confessor who “accidentally” goes into his room and reads documents detailing personal matters and destined only for his own eyes and those of his director of conscience in Hanoi, i.e., Father Boucher (To Father Antonio Boucher, 25 Mar 1951). Marcel is indignant. He seethes. He waits a bit to see what is up. But as soon as this priest says to him, unsolicited, in the confessional, something as insensitive and useless as “I do not know why you’re tempted so often,” it’s the last straw; Marcel has the good sense to up and choose a new confessor (To Father Antonio Boucher, 30 Mar 1951)—without so much as having yet received a reply from his spiritual director to his letter a few days previously about the “accident” of reading private matters of conscience. If this is how he is being treated, Marcel doesn’t need approval from his director of conscience in Hanoi. He knows he is right to walk away from this abuser right now in Saigon. He only informs his spiritual friend, not asks his permission.

Of course, the acts and words of this confessor in Saigon would be bad enough—the first comprise indisputably an abuse of power—without Văn’s history, but with it, the acts and words become egregious. If someone comes to you for refuge from clerical abuse, you, a cleric, had better not treat him this way, whether you fully know about his past or not.

In Saigon, though, it wasn’t just the confessor who was an abuser. Văn’s situation with the superior started well; the superior treated him very kindly (To Father Antonio Boucher, 12 Feb 1950; To Father Antonio Boucher, 22 Sep 1951). Then, when Marcel least expected it—as is so often the case when a phase of grooming reaches an end—the superior turned on him. The reasons for the switch might have an explanation. The change perhaps arises because Marcel was sent to the south to enjoy some rest (A 878–879; SH 36), but the fact of the matter is, the house was lax and disorderly, so Marcel started living according to the Redemptorist Rule and Constitutions there (To Father Antonio Boucher, 12 Feb 1950; To Father Antonio Boucher, 21 Feb 1950; To Father Antonio Boucher, 16 Jul 1950). This might have rubbed people the wrong way. Yet it would be almost impossible for Văn to react differently. We know that his sticking to the Rule of wherever he is is how he responds to abuses against people; this is precisely how he resisted at the presbytery (A 240, 468–471; SH 16). Not only is he well-intentioned in enforcing the Rule and Constitutions. He is surviving. This is how he survives in a clerical environment after clerical abuse. He can’t give up his own duties and rights in the Rule, nor those of others. That would be like saying abuse is fine and dandy. To expect him to do so is, at best, unrealistic. At worst (and probably closer to reality), it is of course a new wave of abuse itself.

At any rate, not only does everything fall apart with the openly abusive confessor at Saigon, the superior also turns on Marcel. When all this transpires, Marcel is remarkably astute. He himself uses of the superior the words “abusing his authority,” i.e., abuse of authority, abuse of power. This is in direct response to the superior converting what are general permissions for all members of the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer in Vietnam into an actual obligation for Marcel; he has been ordered to do nothing but sleep during siesta every day, even if he is not tired. The same superior, as related in this same letter, in personal meetings with Văn “finishes with accusations of such a nature that I am stupefied, to the point of asking myself if it is really a question of true things or pure calumnies.” By any sane standard, this too is abuse of power and spiritual abuse. Marcel puts his foot down. He knows the truth. He knows his rights: “From the fact of being superior he has not all the powers for directing and controlling external things and affairs of conscience and the thoughts of each religious” (To Father Antonio Boucher, 28 May 1951). Note clearly the words “conscience” and “power.” He is fully aware, even if he doesn’t have our vocabulary for it, of the notions of abuse of conscience and abuse of power. He chafes under it, probably more than most due to his complicated past. He doesn’t stand it. He calls it out. Thank God that Marcel receives from his actual spiritual director a “reassuring letter” in response to these abuses (To Father Antonio Boucher, 13 Jun 1951). Not everyone is so blessed.

Despite everything, though, Marcel seems to spin out in the letters from this time until he moves to Đa Lạt for his second novitiate, as the superior does not relent, and Father Boucher himself seems to lose control of the delicate situation of a sensitive personality, which, having survived clerical abuse, is now found in its crosshairs again. It is difficult to read these letters. Marcel is not at his most lovable. Yet it is a compelling testimony. If we have a compassionate eye, we can see that he’s been retraumatized and had a moral injury reactivated by a new bout and network of clerical abuse. Is he rigid in response? Yes. When he’s not rigid, does he compensate with pleading, then crumbling into pieces, then seeming defensive? Well, yes. Does he seem, to a surface-level reading, insufficiently well composed, inadequately collected, possibly inappropriately put-together in simplistic moral terms? Again, yes. But the surface doesn’t tell all when such a massive psychological disruption has been enforced. Marcel spins out. But what he also does is survive, in hope, in love, in faith—again.

Neglect

Marcel doesn’t supply too much narrative detail of what he calls neglect. Nor is neglect easy to always ascribe to abuse rather than concomitant factors. Yet as an overall experience, there is definite experiential overlap for the victim. Several times, Marcel remarks that nobody cared about his studies (A 158, 167–168). This feeds into his status as a slave (A 167; 221–222, 456, 537; SH 9), which I discussed in more detail in the section on spiritual abuse, abuse of conscience, and abuse of power. Another prominent and unforgettable instance of neglect occurs when Văn dislocates his knee (A 185–211; SH 10).

Segregation

Bridging the gap between the individual and psychological, on the one hand, and the social, on the other, Marcel is aware that some problems were exacerbated by segregation. Of course, the majority of the abuse was actually at the hands of Vietnamese catechists, priests, and tertiaries. But that doesn’t stop Văn from meeting segregation that had its first roots in a difference between races, when he was at Thái Nguyên (A 281). There doesn’t seem to be a lot of residue of segregation in what Marcel continues to experience and re-experience in later years. Nonetheless, it is, I think, plausible that segregation contributed, along perhaps with Văn’s difficult relations with foreigners generally, to what was, if I judge rightly, so triggering about being told to do something in French that he was perfectly within his rights to try in his native Vietnamese (To Father Antonio Boucher, 22 Sep 1951).

A culture of disbelief and shaming

Marcel is well aware, in his way, that if it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes one to generate and maintain all the corrupt atmosphere needed for abuse to take hold.

In the positive register, Marcel is, surprisingly for his time, able to appreciate the value of outside forces checking the structures of sin within ecclesial communities. He knows the power of secular society to confront ecclesiastical institutions for the better. Against certain “barbaric” practices of priests and missionaries, Marcel tells us that Vietnamese intellectuals “have reacted forcibly” and generated some improvements (OWV 834). When we recall that these are the secular colonized taking a stand against religious colonizing forces—and succeeding in some measure—we should appreciate the delicacy of Marcel’s thought. He positions himself never on a side in a colonial or culture war. He pits himself constantly against abuse, whatever may leverage his desire to clean up the mess.

Văn’s experiences with negative social forces are, however, even more noticeable in his writings. His first encounter with this social system of anti-checks and anti-balances occurs in the aftermath of his experience of Catholic school. He must withdraw from tuition. The system is too emotionally and psychologically abusive for him to live in. He’s taken to a doctor. But in fact, the doctor is the opposite of helpful. He diagnoses the problem as internal to Văn. He has some sort of neurosis. Văn protests. It is not true. The problem is the school. He is psychologically ill from abuse at the Catholic school alone. The doctor doesn’t care. He doesn’t pay attention. He fails Văn (A 116).

The next experience comes in the aftermath of Hữu Bằng. It is simply a fact that nobody wants to believe that things are as bad as they are. Văn’s father, upon hearing of his son’s attempt to escape from the presbytery, says his son is an unruly child and that he “would not be sorry if he were beaten to death” (A 265n13, note from his sister Tế; cf. 332, 383, 392n26, 404). Văn is cognizant of these dynamics of denial among Catholics:

[I]n the minds of Christians of that time, to leave the house of God without a good and evident reason was a sign of failure and dishonour. Moreover, through respect for the dignity of the priesthood, Christians dared not pay attention too readily to wrongs committed by priests at that time. Priests have profited greatly from this respect of the faithful, but as for the faithful who were the victims of wrong- doing, they dared not open their mouths. This has encouraged regrettable abuses by some. (A 266)

The dynamic of coverup is illustrated here, too, alongside disbelief and shaming. Just imagine. These words were written in the early 1950s about experience in the ’30s and ’40s, by someone whose cause for beatification has been introduced. And yet we still have gone through how many more decades and still need to listen better. Santo subito, dottore subito!

Indeed, things transpired more or less according to predictions. When Văn arrived home after fleeing the abuse-ridden presbytery, his father treated him exactly thus: “He scolded me in a loud voice and pushed me away as if I were a rough beggar.” Although a visiting aunt tried to comfort him, his mother too pulled away “as if she had no pity for me” and gave a reprimand (A 293). Shaming and denial are evident.

In fact, Văn knows the social power of silencing the victim. He was “not allowed” to give his family reasons why he would run away (A 297). When he did say anything, his mother especially did not believe it. She “did not stop repeating” how she could not believe that the priest she knew could be so unholy (A 299). If he complies with what his family wants, he has to be quiet. If he does what he knows he must, and tells the truth, he is punished by essentially being called a liar—he’s gaslighted. He suffered unimaginable horror, for years, and he’s told it cannot be true. This experience of rejection and denial does not leave Marcel. It persists. It lurks. Years later, he tells his sister that “until now, no one has been able to understand my reasons for running away” from Hữu Bằng and that, had his own beloved mother found out, even she “would not have believed the truth of my words” (To Lê, 15 Aug 1946). Marcel loves his mother immensely; he’s basically a mamma’s boy (cf. A 9–16). Her disbelief cuts him into pieces.

I wonder, too, if we can detect how much it would smart for a superior to constantly tell him, “I do not believe you! I do not believe you!” as at Saigon (To Father Antonio Boucher, 26 Aug 1951). Authority figures tend to form parallels to one another in the psyche. This would surely have dragged up some long-term pain. At any rate, it is yet another face of a culture of disbelief.

Despite all this, however, there was some light. There were some Catholics who could believe it all. In his journeys, Văn met a young man named Đinh, who had been scandalized by the bad example at the presbytery he had been sent to, asked to be brought home, and had been plainly and trustingly allowed to return (A 348). And in the Redemptorist community, there is of course his lifelong spiritual director Father Boucher, who, despite whitewashing some things here and there, nevertheless was a real spiritual friend and support to Marcel, believing the substance of what he related.

A culture of coverup

A culture of disbelief and shaming never ends in itself. It spawns a culture of coverup. It implements calumny, destruction of reputation, and gaslighting. Much of this coverup culture has already bled into the previous sections. I will satisfy myself with pointing out new material.

Văn himself has internalized messages about protecting the work, and thus the reputations, of priests. While still at the presbytery, he converses thus to himself:

I felt the grace of a force in my soul which extinguished completely the fire of anger. I said to myself: “What good would it do to speak? It is necessary to put up with everything so that his priestly dignity can be safeguarded and produce fruit in souls. If because of one word his authority was despised, it would be better to ask God to destroy the world. How could I then wish to go searching for souls to bring them back to God?” (A 226)

When preparing to escape after having written a letter to the bishop containing the truth, the same reservation and internalized message recurs:

Personally, I was not feeling too happy. For some unknown reason I now felt a lot of sympathy for the parish priest. I regretted having made my report. This stem from any regret did not fear resulting from the seizure of the documents and their reaching the priest’s hands since, even before that, I felt a kind of unease. I was sorry for the parish priest. I feared he might be punished. (A 231)

With enough constant bombardment about the need to protect the institution, the victim himself internalizes it. Part of him knows not to. But the way the human person is made, it’s impossible for that to be the only part. Messages from outside are received. When they come with the psychological force of one’s community and its authority figures, they will sink their teeth in and cause genuine interior turmoil. This moral injury is, of course, appalling. It is not of Marcel’s making. It’s part of the abuse culture. It’s an internalized message that supports the external mechanisms of coverup.

The primary perpetrators of coverup are of course priests and other perpetrators of clerical abuse. They do it to save their necks. In retrospect, Marcel explains remarkably well:

I was able to understand, later, the parish priest’s secret motive. He had wished to drive me away many times, especially after I had twice seen him embracing a tertiary and young girls. It would be too shameful for him to advance this reason for getting rid of me. On the other hand, if he sent me away without a reason my parents would demand an explanation and he would not know what to say. In fact, to dismiss someone from God’s house is seriously to damage the family’s reputation. He tried therefore to bring this accusation of theft into play, with the secret motive of showing me the door and getting some peace for himself. Subsequently, if my parents came demanding explanations, he could answer them: “It is because he has stolen.” (A 234)

This is precisely why Father Nhã organized the system of forcing Văn to steal, as outlined in the section on abuse of conscience, abuse of power, and spiritual abuse. It’s a trap. Văn escapes the trap. But it was one nonetheless.

Is Văn paranoid to think this? Is he making things up? Well, the most that we can say is that, if he is, it is under the intense psychological pressure and manipulation of abuse. So it’s not like we should be blaming him for it. We should rather be examining the abuser. But for my part, I think Văn is right. Abusers do set up deliberate Catch-22s. It’s especially easy for clerical abusers to do. The way the spiritual dynamics of the priest–layperson relationship works sets up a spiritual Catch-22 nicely, if the priest is inclined to exploit the opportunity. It isn’t hard for a spiritual authority to create a situation where blame is inevitable.

Ultimately, Father Nhã did calumniate Văn to his parents. When this happened, the boy could only console himself, “God knows the truth: that’s enough for me” (A 419). It may be enough in some sense. But the fact that this is all that can be reached by little Văn also props up the culture of abuse and coverup. We should understand that whatever spiritual seeds blossom here, they find root in a desertifying social field.

Unfortunately, though, it is not part of the social dynamics of coverup culture to stop at the instigation of priests. Others have to participate. In Văn’s case, he has no interactions with higher-ups like bishops, nor with institutional structures, which were lacking. He tries, to be sure. At one point, he writes a letter with friends detailing clerical crimes; but it is intercepted and stolen by the perpetrators themselves (A 229–232). No contact with the episcopate is recorded. That’s not really to the bishops’ credit, however. Marcel elsewhere suspects that the bishop’s house “is where the root of the problem was” (OWV 813). He can’t confirm it, but his sense of how the propagation of sin and structures of sin work gives him this inkling.

What we see for a wider frame of reference in Văn’s story is that his own family—which effectively means his own village, his hometown—is complicit. Although his mother saw the appalling state of affairs for herself upon returning Văn to Hữu Bằng, she asked her child to stay because if she took him home immediately, there would be gossip and “we have a duty to safeguard the reputation of priests” (A 302). These are horrific words. Văn’s recorded response is gut-wrenching: “My heart was torn apart” (A 303). I can add nothing to this.

Conclusion

To those who would forget everything that I have recorded here and coin a bunch of whitewashed words to avoid describing Văn’s experience as clerical abuse, I have nothing good to say. I can only appeal in the end to the very words of Marcel himself: “There is always one or another of the brothers who thinks that I have never had to suffer” (Conv. 521–522). And: “It is often said of me that I am frivolous, that I do not know how to reflect or that I never experience sadness” (To Brother Andrew, 22 May 1949). Well, after his death, there is always one or another of his so-called friends who won’t utter the words clerical abuse. All this is just a case of plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. And that’s emphatically not a compliment.

Of course, some today do acknowledge Văn’s suffering, but they still seem content to ignore that he “suffered continually at the presbytery of Hữu Bằng” (Conv. 601), endured “inhuman treatment” (To Tế, 22 Apr 1950), and was “oppressed unceasingly” (To friends at Hữu Bằng, 14 July 1946). They neglect that Văn refers to people who have “suffered a lot at Hữu Bằng at the hands of a gang which oppresses children” (To Nghi, 11 Jan 1948)—which any standard usage of English today would without reserve call “child abuse.” In the vocabulary of some, all this was just (normal, average, general, relatable-to-any-and-all) suffering. They don’t clarify how there was continual, unceasing, coordinated, inhuman oppression. Sadly, if it’s hard enough to get this stated outright, you can imagine how hard it’s going to be to address the elephant in the room.

Even more people refuse to talk about clerical abuse in Văn’s context. They ignore that Marcel addresses shockingly blanket reproaches to priests: “you have abused your strength to oppress others” (OWV 804). They say nothing of Marcel’s statement: “In the presence of the glaring abuses of [Hữu Bằng], I cannot contain the feelings of my heart; and through love for souls, I cannot do otherwise than to show these feelings to those who are also animated by true charity for souls” (OWV 849). Nor how “it has been impossible for me to repress the agitation of my heart” regarding later abuses (OWV 850). Some people recognize pain but pretend that Văn doesn’t himself purport to be addressing clerical abuse and indeed a clerical abuse crisis. 

At the beginning, I noted the horrific connection of canonically disciplined abuser Marie-Michel Hostalier to the interpretation of Văn’s life, as well as the clear lapses in judgment of the more sober figures of Cardinal Schönborn and Archbishop Boccardo. I would also add to this list a few more examples. There is attributing the ordeal to “the cruel Jansenism of the catechists” and a fear that “Van would let himself fall into this Jansenist vision.”[11] There is the plain fact that declaring “a clergy without a soul” and “corrupt catechists” only goes halfway towards citing the problem with its proper name.[12] There are all those times that the perpetrators yet more magically become Văn’s “comrades” (camarades) and “those whose job it was to teach instead ended up exploiting,” not at all naming their rank and position within the Church.[13] I could go on.

We need to ask if, in the end, this amounts to the same thing as denial of what happened to Văn—and to others in our lifetimes. Silence often means complicity, a culture of coverup. Can we finally come to a point where we acknowledge this ubiquitous reality in the life of Marcel Văn? He was a victim—a survivor—of clerical abuse.

Having established, I think quite firmly, a basic sketch of the clerical abuse in the life of Marcel Văn, I now intend to look, in minute detail, at how his contemplative and spiritual life was affected in virtually every area, in all his living, until the day of his death, and in his intercession in this life and the one to come.

Photos in header: Marcel Văn at 8 years of age, presbytery of Hữu Bằng

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[1] Marie-Michel Hostalier, writing under “Marie-Michel” simply, produced L’amour ne peut mourir. Vie de Marcel Van (Paris: Fayard, 1990). For details on the disciplinary case, see this communiqué of the Diocese of Valence; also “Le Père Marie-Michel Hostalier renvoyé de l’état clérical” (cath.ch, 16 Sep 2021).

[2] Christoph Schönborn, “Preface,” in Marcel Van, Conversations, trans. Jack Keogan (Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2017), 8.

[3] Renato Boccardo, “Preface,” in Marcel Van, Correspondence, trans. Jack Keogan (Versailles: Amia de Van Éditions, 2018), 5.

[4] All references to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux using the system in Œuvres complètes (Paris: Cerf / Desclée de Brouwer, 2023), with translations my own.

[5] Conv. = Marcel Van, Conversations, trans. Jack Keogan (Complete Works 2; Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2017).

[6] SH = Father Antonio Boucher, Short History of Van (Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2017). References to section number, not page number.

[7] A = Marcel Van, Autobiography, trans. Jack Keogan (Complete Works 1; Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2019).

[8] OW = Marcel Van, Other Writings, trans. Jack Keogan (Complete Works 4; Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2018). Additional system for abbreviations explained on page 14, e.g., OWN = notebooks; OWV = various writings.

[9] To = Marcel Van, Correspondence, trans. Jack Keogan (Complete Works 3; Versailles: Amis de Van Éditions, 2018).

[10] The terms “abuse of conscience” and “abuse of power” are used by Pope Francis in his “Letter to the People of God” on clerical abuse (20 Aug 2018). For more on spiritual abuse, see, e.g., Pope Francis Generation / SmartCatholics, “Spiritual Abuse: What is it & how to respond to it,” YouTube (14 Jul 2022); Paul Fahey, “The Place Where You Stand is Holy Ground: Recognizing and Preventing Spiritual Abuse in the Catholic Church,” Where Peter Is (Sep 2022); Paul Fahey, “Red Flags of Spiritual Abuse,” Pope Francis Generation (8 Aug 2023).

[11] Bruno-Marie Simon, “Van, enfant martyr, missionnaire de la Joie,” in Anne de Bläy (ed.), Quel est ton secret, petit Van? (Versailles: Éditions Saint Paul / Les Amis de Van, 2000), 178–183 (181). Note that shifting attention from actual abuse and abuse culture towards the ideology of “Jansenism,” which evidently does not need (this level of) abuse to survive, is a narrative move (to my knowledge) first performed by known abuser Michel-Marie Hostalier in his L’amour ne peut mourir, 80. The words, in fact, are identical: “Jansenist vision.”

[12] Gilles Berceville, Marcel Van, ou l’infinie pauvreté de l’Amour (Paris: Éditions de l’Emmanuel / Les Amis de Van, 2009), 40, 42. In this author’s defence, I note that he has published an entire article on spiritual abuse: “L’abus spirituel: c’est-à-dire?” in Marie-Jo Thiel, Anne Danion-Grilliat and Frédéric Trautmann (eds.), Abus sexuels. Écouter, enquêter, prévenir (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2022), 115–135. But this still doesn’t make matters less opaque in the case of Văn.

[13] Thierry de Roucy, “L’apôtre des enfants,” in Anne de Bläy (ed.), Quel est ton secret, petit Van? (Versailles: Éditions Saint Paul / Les Amis de Van, 2000), 149–158 (152).