Chapter 2: A flawed interpretation
A flawed interpretation
Having noted the factual failure to respect the texts and teachings of Fr. M-D. Philippe and the distorted way of interpreting them, we must now highlight the interpretative logic that emerges from this approach. This logic runs through the whole report, and can be characterized by an obsession with abuse, a blind sacralization of any statement that goes in the direction of denunciation, and a determination to extract a deviant doctrine from the work and teaching of Father M.-D. Philippe. This subjective bias, when the aim is to analyze the objective content of a teaching, gives rise to a large number of deontological/ethical errors and manipulative reasoning that prevent any honest work of understanding. In order to provide access to a serene appreciation of the texts and the teaching concerned, we are highlighting them here.
The doctrinal part of the report is first and foremost a permanent reference to the first part (“Historical study”), which is constantly being quoted in connection with abuses. The affective pressure of this first part on the doctrinal part is all the stronger as it is presented as the result of a historical investigation, whereas it consists of the unilateral exposition of the assertions of the “plaintiffs” and draws its power from a rhetoric of disgust through a form of voyeurism of the evil imposed on the reader. The third section, entitled “Psychological and systemic study”, is also present in the doctrinal part, through the hypothesis of a systemic evil. This section provides elements of analysis and testimony designed to support the hypothesis of a system of abuse, drawing on an interpretation of the culture of the Philippe and Dehau families without having had any clinical experience of it1. No alternative reading of the culture of the Communauté Saint-Jean is envisaged; those among the brothers or sisters who might have formulated it were not questioned. Anything that Father Marie-Dominique Philippe might have said or done that might correct, counteract or invalidate the report’s hypothesis is never taken into account. While a number of the statements quoted in this doctrinal section could be understood in a very different sense, it is systematically their perverse version that is put forward!
So, without going into the details of these first and third parts, it remains enlightening to highlight the recurrence of biases of interpretation and ways of presenting things between these parts of the report and the one concerning Father Philippe’s teaching, entitled “Theological Study “2.
1. Operating conditions that raise questions
A. Conditions of investigation and of interrogation
Since this doctrinal section argues more than 110 times – on 103 pages! – by means of incriminating testimonies, it is impossible not to question the use made of them, i.e., the conditions of investigation and interrogation implemented, the interpretative logic of which we find in the way Father Marie-Dominique Philippe’s texts are treated. We are far from a judicial investigation and trial in which the fundamental principles of fairness would be respected: independence of justice, right to a fair trial, respect for adversarial debate, respect for the rights to defend oneself, fairness of debates. On the contrary, the entire report is imbued with a bias in favor of the accuser’s version and prosecution testimony.
1 A test group of ten brothers doing a “retrospection of history” is supposed to replace this direct experience!
2 And not “Study of the interpretations of Father M.-D. Philippe’s teaching”!
The plaintiffs are declared the “victims” and their testimonies are produced without ever giving the version of the accused (and first and foremost Father M.-D. Philippe himself), except when it is itself incriminating. In fact, the aim of listening to and accepting incriminating testimonies and formulating potential teaching deviations seems to be as much to understand the suffering of the complainants as to help them formulate the seriousness of the abuse they have suffered, that they think they have suffered or that, in some cases, they are not yet aware they have suffered. So there’s a fundamental bias: taking the plaintiffs’ side, qualifying them from the outset as victims, forgetting or wishing to ignore the fact that this is the exclusive competence of a judge at the end of a fair trial. In so doing, we neglect (especially when the accused is a priest or a brother) to listen to the accused equally and objectively and, consequently, we fail to take into account what could, in the accused’s statements, correct or even counteract the plaintiffs’ statements on the facts, their nature, their meaning or their context.
The most striking aspect of the investigation process since 2013 has been the absence of any adversarial debate. There is hardly any confrontation between the divergent versions of the people involved, no exculpatory testimony, no possible response to the accusations, no defense lawyer. There is nothing therefore to guide the interpretation of the statements towards a dismissal or a relativization of the seriousness of the alleged facts. In other words, we are faced with numerous denials of justice, a superimposition of assertions based on unverifiable investigative procedures and of which we have only a few partial elements. The incriminating facts, apart from those which have been tried in civil courts or those which have been fully admitted as such, are essentially impossible to prove. The testimonies produced are mostly part of an interpersonal relationship in which the reader is summoned after the fact, and essentially on the basis of the statements made by the complainant(s). The fragility and illegitimacy of such a procedure lead us to use the implacable argument of “converging clues” – not subject to cross examination questioning – within a climate of suspicion and a systematic hermeneutic of possible abuse!
This same approach can be found in the incriminating presentation of possible interpretations of the texts and teachings of Father Marie-Dominique Philippe and some of the brothers: it’s always the incriminating plausibility, the interpretation in favor of the accusing hypothesis, which prevails.
The theological aspect of the report is also weighed down by a permanent but decisive omission: that of relational asymmetry. Father Philippe (but also any of the accused brother) is considered to have abused his position of superiority; this is even more apparent when the accused is a priest or holds a particular office. The relationship is always presented as one of asymmetrical accompaniment, never as one of intersubjectivity between two adults. We sometimes get the impression that we’re talking about nineteenth-century spiritual direction or the accompaniment of minors by adults! However, the elementary experience of human relations shows that asymmetry is not only statutory. Many cases reveal affective asymmetries, and the one who emotionally takes the upper hand over the other is not necessarily the one in authority. A person who does not hold a position or hierarchical responsibility is nonetheless sometimes the one who, in effect, “governs” the other. Thus, the very use made by certain complainants – and by the report – of Father Philippe’s statements in a dialogue, cancels out what can be seen as a refusal to take the place of the freedom and conscience of the person being accompanied. There are countless examples of this in everyday life, in companies, but also in the Church, especially since the strong questioning of authority in the 1970s. Arguing that asymmetry is what encourages abuse makes sense when it is one-sided and used in a manipulative way. But experience shows that the person who is hierarchically relative has manipulative tools that are just as emotionally powerful as the person above him or her. Admittedly, it would be desirable for every spiritual director to have the necessary lucidity and distance to avoid falling into this trap; and in a certain number of cases, this lack of necessary distance can be criticized. But blaming someone for a lack of responsibility, lucidity or courage is one thing; accusing or condemning them for abuse is quite another.
In the same way, teaching is only considered asymmetrical. Misinterpretation or misuse of the content of a teaching is placed exclusively on the teacher, and is interpreted as revealing its ambiguous, incomplete or dangerous nature. The responsibility, even laziness and lack of cooperation, of those who use misunderstood teaching to justify erroneous behavior are never taken into account.
The testimonies called upon in the doctrinal section are presented in a way that totally cancels out the temporality and complexity of particular situations. They are mentioned only to accentuate their accusatory weight, never to relativize it. The emotional charge then transforms what is declared into indisputable truth. The distance in time between the alleged facts and the statements is neglected; conversely, the assimilation between facts and statements that are distant in time or pertain to completely different complex concrete situations is systematically practiced. Only similarities that support the hypothesis of a system of abuse are retained. This is the same type of interrogation used by the Abuse Commission and now commonplace throughout the Community of Saint John : the legitimization of a systematically suspicious interpretative bias, in which the truth is not sought, but the confirmation of an assumed prejudice, based on the complainants’ statements.
In the same way, texts that were written a long time ago, or that are transcriptions of lectures given in very different circumstances and to very different audiences, are univocally paralleled.
B. The editorial team
The second questionable observation in this “Theological Study”, and more broadly in the report as a whole, is the lack of balance in the content of the alleged facts. The term “sexual abuse” covers a kiss, a fondling, as much as characterized rape; similarly, the term “spiritual abuse” covers excessive fascination of the person accompanied as well as characterized abuse of power. The way things are presented – the word “abuse” is used more than 275 times in our section! – always suggests the worst, and systematically raises the spectre of physical or psychological rape. Reading the report leaves one with the impression of extremely numerous and very serious deviant behaviors, whereas knowledge of the real facts, a little human experience and a little psychological understanding call for balance. You can’t equate a slip-up within a strong affective relationship nurtured by two people with a violent attempt to force someone into an unwanted sexual relationship. Moreover, in many cases, without this ever being pointed out, the people’s own version of events shows their co-responsibility, and sometimes even their decisive responsibility.
In the same way, there is no such thing as a balanced reading of writings and listening to teachings. An anonymous “testimony”, for example, supports the interpretation of a formally indisputable teaching. Or the Church’s Magisterium is brandished against a supposed doctrinal deficiency in Marie-Dominique Philippe’s teaching, without the differences in perspective being made clear. Likewise, the abusive use of private writings (such as personal letters sent without the author’s consent, or advice given in “spiritual direction”, which is internal and inseparable from a personal situation that cannot be generalized) to support doctrinal arguments is deontologically wrong.
The diversity of situations and acts is also canceled out by a presentation that always follows the same pattern and, through its repetitiveness, ends up becoming a major argument, including in doctrinal criticism. Situations are approached to validate the hypothesis of the guilt of the incriminated person and the overall suspicion of systemic perversion, instead of attempting to pinpoint the complex truth of what happened between people. This is particularly evident in the way each case is presented: the horror of the hypothesis rubs off on the way the conditions of abuse are staged or what might resemble it.
The presentation or testimony is designed to create horror and disgust. The narrative mode resembles that of pornography: a complacency that creates unease and fascination. Finally, the essence of what is said is never presented in the conditional tense. We almost “witness” the horror of the facts, the experience and suffering of the victims. Hearing or reading anything written or said by Father M.-D. Philippe becomes unbearable, and even the most speculative text ends up with a whiff of perversity.
In the same way, the doctrinal side never ceases to wave the red rag of testimonies on the perversion of abuse, suspecting that texts and teaching provide, almost in advance, for their justification in the conscience of abusers.
So, not only are we not dealing with an honest investigation, but the claim to want to establish the reality of the facts or the truth of the texts raises questions, when the biases of interpretation are so blatant and so crude.
C. The media tribute
The third component in the way Father Philippe’s teachings are approached, based on the treatment of his actions, is media emphasis. Since 2013, the entire process of interpreting facts or statements concerning the abuses of Father Philippe and the brothers has been locked into a media treatment that helps to reinforce it. This further eliminates nuance and reinforces the hypothesis they are trying to demonstrate. The assertions, published loud and clear, of a collusion between Father Thomas Philippe’s spiritual approach and his brother’s theological and philosophical thinking, of an almost systematic justification of the abuses by his “doctrine” of friendship and the teaching of it as a means of propagating one’s errors and mistakes leave little room for a serene and precise approach, and sow doubt in the minds of a great many people.
Just think of the Arte documentary, or the media coverage of the book whose title is a program in itself: L’Affaire1. The rhetoric of dramatization and scandal, the violence of assertions, the shortcutting of figures, the retention of only the most outrageous plausibility – all this is part and parcel of media logic and, through the power of images, disposes minds to envisage only the worst. Horrors, delirious justifications, obscene acts: in the end, the goal is to retain only one thing: scandal. All this encourages the hysterization of the atmosphere around these affairs, in the Brothers’ community, in those of the contemplative and apostolic Sisters, in the whole of the Family of Saint John , and encourages unhealthy introspection: everyone looks at themselves and wonders if they have not unwittingly been the object of abuse. As the phenomenon of collective hysteria grows, many now feel that they have been deceived and abused as a whole, even if they have never been involved in any act or anything resembling it, nor in any mental manipulation or anything resembling it.
This rhetoric of indignation can be found in the doctrinal part of the report, which neglects the objective intellectual content of teaching.
In this way, nuance disappears completely, giving way to the staging of the shock of images. There’s no weighting of the facts, no cancellation of the historical distance between what we claim to know about what happened in the 1950s and the testimonies gathered over the last five years. No mention of the difference between proven facts for which we should be able to provide proof, and presumptions, hypotheses or suspicions. Everything is laminated by a ruthless dialectic, and distorted by an interpretative prism that consists in seeing the seeds of horror in what was already brewing in the subconscious of the Philippe brothers and their family neuroses a century ago… But the most extraordinary thing is that these procedures are applied even in what is supposed to be a “Theological Study”, so that they inevitably transform it into an indictment without appeal.
1 TANGI CAVALIN, L’Affaire – Les dominicains face au scandale des frères Philippe, Paris, Cerf, 2023.
Thus, what is intended to be most shocking in the staged story is supposed to shed light on the presumed perversion of the doctrine.
Since the government of the Saint John Community has only one voice and implies that there is only one right way of thinking, which it presents as that of the majority of brothers since it has been approved by general chapters, it has no difficulty in promoting a media presentation of its version of the facts, its diagnosis and the decisions taken to rectify all this. Unfortunately, the media’s absolutization of the community government’s word leads to an absolutization of its version of events, through media bludgeoning both outside and inside the community. Public expression is virtually impossible and, internally, community debate is rejected: anyone wishing to express a different opinion is branded as being “in denial” and clearly discredited. This imposed and constructed discourse misses an essential reality: many brothers and sisters experience in their hearts a deep division between their intimate conviction and the desire to loyally adjust to the assertions of their superiors. Many do not subscribe to the radicalization of the accusations, nor to their extension to the spiritual path and teaching of Father Marie-Dominique Philippe.
On the question of Father Marie-Dominique Philippe’s teaching, consultation by vicariates revealed an entirely different perception than that which emerges from the report; as for the doctrinal questions it raises, they are asserted as conclusions to be accepted by all, without ever having been the subject of free debate with brothers and sisters formed philosophically and theologically.
There is no real internal debate, and any possible recourse outside the community to the ecclesiastical authorities is made impossible by a rhetoric of “evidence of facts” – when in many cases there is no formal proof – and an unconditional acquiescence to doubts about the teaching – without anything conclusive having been produced. Added to this is a rhetoric of repentance, coupled with a sensitization to the “horror” of what the “victims” are going through, so that any injustices and procedural faults are erased. It becomes normal to correct Father Philippe’s mistakes, and to set aside the teaching that is supposed to convey them1. Plausibility takes precedence over the complexity of truth, so that the community and its members end up appearing globally as manipulated people who saw nothing, as unconsciously complicit perverts, or as consciously complicit perverts in a logic of collective abuse.
From a doctrinal point of view, too, the plausibility of a reading hypothesis nourished by the principle of abuse replaces the simple, self-evident reading of texts and the rigorous understanding of what is formulated.
D. A claim to establish history
The final bias that distorts the critical appraisal of Father M.-D. Philippe’s teaching is the voluntary will to judge it at the tribunal of the Church’s Magisterium, Catholic theology and even the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas. It’s one thing to question a teaching, a reflection or texts, or to criticize them on the basis of one’s own work; it’s quite another to set oneself up as a judge of the idoneity or danger of a teaching and research that spans seventy years. To pass judgment on the history of a Community to which one has belonged, or to opt for a particular theological opinion as a criterion of objective discernment, is more than perilous.
Every historian knows that history cannot be established at the moment it is being lived. They also know that establishing reliable documents and evidence is a lengthy and time-consuming process
1 The condemnation of a number of propositions attributed to Saint Thomas by the bishop of Paris and the archbishop of Canterbury in 1277 (Thomas died in 1274) and his rehabilitation 48 years later should open our eyes!
in which the historian’s subjectivity is a permanent trap. Yet this report is both an investigative report and a historical record. In other words, the editors are judge and jury: they contribute the elements they have selected and classify them in the sense of what they themselves are in the process of establishing,
i.e. a collective history of abuse. How can you claim to write history with such a lack of hindsight and such a clear bias? You can’t ask someone who’s absolutely convinced they’re dealing with a history of collective abuse, and who wants to prove it, to write anything other than the history of collective abuse they think they’re dealing with. He’ll classify any story that even remotely resembles it as abuse. Every text, every element, everything is seen through this prism.
Here we come back to what was said above, namely the absence of nuance and the oversimplification of individual stories. As we said, testimonies are taken in a one-sided way; on the other hand, testimonies from brothers and sisters on the probity and courage of some of their brothers in the face of the emotional harassment of the people they accompanied are never collected, for example. The “story” of the relationship between carer and cared-for is almost systematically rewritten, after the “victim” has finally realized that she was!
In the same way, the intellectual history of Father Marie-Dominique Philippe is rewritten by those who were involved in it, according to what they want to demonstrate: inheritance or similarity of doctrine with Father Thomas Philippe, distancing from Saint Thomas Aquinas or the Magisterium of the Church, etc., without corresponding to the reality of the texts.
In historical terms, then, the documents are partial and biased. They are one-sided and taken out of context. An oral declaration carries the same weight as a written letter, and a written letter carries the same weight as an acknowledged fault. Some statements are truncated: for example, the acknowledgement by certain brothers of their faults, accompanied by a profound disagreement on the severity of the punishment inflicted on them, is transformed in the official discourse into a pure and simple acceptance of the punishment. A true historian, however, cannot twist or truncate texts to make them say what he or she wants, without serious intellectual dishonesty. Genuine historical work takes years to get to grips with the subject: it demands attention, benevolence, respect for sources, and the necessary hindsight to avoid interpreting things in a way that doesn’t correspond to reality. We know that history has always been dangerous: it can become the servant of power and a formidable tool for settling scores.
How can one claim to establish and criticize Father Marie-Dominique Philippe’s “doctrine” without situating it historically and in the coherence of its progressive development? Instead, the report’s authors take the texts outside any chronology, claiming to criticize them in the light of the great “history of orthodox Catholic thought” – their own, at least.
In this sense, we see a number of manipulations of statements and formulations based on ideological bias. Just as there is a Marxist reading, a structuralist reading, a positivist reading, a sociological reading of history… there is here a “victim” reading of the history of the Community Saint John and Father Philippe. This bias as a historical reading grid obviously raises questions and calls for rigorous criticism.
From a doctrinal point of view, the whole of Marie-Dominique Philippe’s teaching is interpreted as favoring and potentially condoning abuses! In contempt of the elementary respect due to research of such scope and development over time.
At a deeper level, what’s questionable about the claim to establish history is the logic of causality. They want to prove the implacable logic of evil that would link a doctrine to a culture of abuse, and this culture to deviant behavior. The aim is to show that, if brothers slip, it’s necessarily because they’ve been pushed into it, to the point of suggesting that they themselves are victims of Father Philippe and his teachings. Documents and statements are used, even fabricated – by the retrospection that is suggested regarding it — to verify this systemic hypothesis, without ever being able to prove it. Yet there are many passages in Father Marie-Dominique Philippe’s teachings – and declarations – that can be interpreted as a severe repudiation of the justifications for emotional excesses or their abusive minimization. Certain texts or verbatim statements can give rise to misinterpretation for those who seek a guarantee for the actions their desires would have them undertake. What teaching or advice on charity, love, friendship and mercy would stand up to such misinterpretation? Of course, it is only these extracts from texts – or reported words – which can be manipulated to deceive oneself by blaming their author, that have been added to this report.
Doctrinally, can we judge a text or a teaching according to the distorting and unfaithful interpretation we might make of it? If this were justified, no one would be able to teach or write, locked in terror of what they might be made to say.
Finally, the report, and the reformist approach that underpins it, disturbingly develop a form of dialectical materialism applied to the history of the Community Saint John. Just as the Marxist reading of history rests on the denunciation of the oppression of the poor by the rich, so here the interpretation rests on the denunciation of the abuse of victims, often women, by a male spiritual and priestly authority. Claiming to denounce and dismantle a systemic evil through this report and all the explanations that have preceded it since 2013, some want to correct it through radical political decisions and sanctions, justified by a Catholic doctrine in line with dogmatics, and the authoritarian exercise of power that claims to be both the representative of the people and the savior of the institution that is the Saint John Community. Through the dictatorship of the proletariat – in fact, the government that does right by the victims – justified by the systemic Truth of History, the institution wants to radically reform itself. Since bourgeois-style infrastructures of thought and action have created serious inequalities between human beings – namely, the abuse of others – the dictatorship will finally be able to restore equality and justice. How can such a clearly dialectical approach not raise questions?
In Marxist terms, orthopraxy judges orthodoxy: abuses allow us to judge doctrine, just as the inequalities of capitalism allow us to judge the whole of Western thought.
We can’t help but see in this report a product of Western cancel culture, which aims to burn the past in the name of the “horrible” faults committed by our forebears, with anachronism, a projection of current problems and an imaginary strongly amplified by the mass media and the virtual. And yet, without a past, what are we but orphans?
2. Internal consistency of an interpretation
The way in which the teaching criticized here is read and interpreted is distorting, because it seeks to make doctrinal criticism the key to saving the Saint John’s Community. This “Theological Study” is intended to be political in scope, denouncing the intellectual and spiritual core that supports and promotes the culture of abuse, and this fundamentally undermines its credibility. The obsession with correcting deviance stems from the original mechanism for establishing the culture of suspicion, denunciation and sanction as restorative means in the Community of Saint John1. We need to remind ourselves of this here, as it rubs off even in what should be nothing more than a dispassionate analysis of the limits of teaching and the failings it can foster when simplified and idealized, i.e. distorted.
1 It is not necessarily a deliberate move, but one that’s part of a growing trend in Western culture and the Catholic Church – particularly in France and English-speaking countries.
The starting point for the process of interpretation – which eventually became a systematic way of dealing with real, presumed or possible abuse – was in 2013, when some people were talking about considering the beatification of Father Marie-Dominique Philippe. The Prior General then became aware of testimonies implicating Father Marie-Dominique Philippe: testimonies of relationships that allegedly contained elements contrary to chastity. Having discussed them with his two direct collaborators, he decided to put the problem on the agenda of the General Chapter, without giving access to the testimonies. The result is a balanced text on “convergent and credible testimonies to the effect that Father Philippe has sometimes made gestures contrary to chastity”, although the day after the Chapter, the Prior General’s media statements speak of the facts as if they were true. Father Philippe then quickly joined the dock of the accused, equated with abusers and pedophiles, in the midst of the pedophilia scandal (the Barbarin affair broke in 2016).
The creation of conditions conducive to the verification of the hypothesis then rested on the suspicion that gradually animated the majority of Congregation leaders (Brothers, Contemplative Sisters and Apostolic Sisters):
- The suspicion is extended from certain acts of Father Philippe to the whole of his actions, his way of being and governing, and then to the whole Community (starting with his immediate collaborators), which would have been influenced by his way of doing things. Evil then takes on maximum hypothetical magnitude, based on the suspicion of a hidden doctrine concerning the link between spirituality and sexuality that would have corrupted everything. Everyone is invited to reread the memories of his or her life in the light of the triple question: “Have I been abused? Was I impregnated by this culture of abuse? Have I been abused? The hypothetical scale of evil takes root at the heart of brothers’ and sisters’ lives.
- Suspicion continues to grow when the moral weaknesses of certain brothers are viewed primarily in terms of abuse (i.e. with unilateral responsibility) and as the consequences of a systemic logic. Suspicion is then extended to all fraternal or companion relationships, then to the doctrine of the love of friendship, then to the entire philosophy and theology of Marie-Dominique Philippe and, as a result, to the whole of what has been taught and lived in the Community.
- Thirdly, systematic suspicion and the general climate of abuse-hunting in the Church of France, encourage brothers and sisters to re-read (on the basis of “memories “1 ) of all the relationships they’ve experienced and the discourses that have accompanied them, based on the suspicion that they’ve been “under control”. With a rhetoric of “the extreme seriousness of abuse”, any critical distancing from the validity of memories, the phenomena of projection or ex post facto clearing of one’s own responsibility, etc. becomes extremely difficult. Denunciation and tattling are encouraged, and anything that might support the hypothesis of control and abuse is given credence. We are encouraged to be indignant about things we have no experience of, and to condemn them on the basis of the government’s declarations, as much as on the basis of our own idea of them…
1 With the problem of the fallibility of memory and the recomposition of memories.
2 Since the Arte report, the shock caused by the person’s statements and their clearly manipulative staging has led to Father Philippe’s alleged acts being described as proven abuse, without anyone really looking into the known psychological dysfunctions of this person close to l’Arche.
Father Marie Dominique Philippe, O.P. 
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