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	Towards Restorative Justice in the Catholic Church Faith and Life April 7, 2011 http://fullergalway.blogspot.com/2011/04/towards-restorative-justice-in-catholic.html Anyone who is seriously following the events which have unfolded in the Catholic Church over the past number of years, and interested to see improvement within the Church will be interested in reading the Lecture notes of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, at Marquette University International Dialogue on the Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal The archbishop gives his personal reflections about his experience over the past seven or eight years with encountering and dealing with the victims, abusers, investigators, clerics, and media. He covers a lot of ground, but one of the things he speaks about how restorative justice might have a role to play in bringing about healing. Here are some snippets about the role of restorative justice in the Catholic Church, taken from Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's speaking notes: "The first condition for restorative justice is that all parties are willing to tell the truth and to take ownership of the truth, even when the truth is unpleasant." "Restorative justice has shown striking results in many areas. But restorative justice is not cheap justice. It is not justice without recognition of wrong-doing, without putting the balance right. Restorative justice may possibly even be about forgiveness, but again not about cheap forgiveness." "In the case of serial sexual offenders restorative justice is not about restoration to ministry." "What does restorative justice mean for victims? This is the challenge which haunts me. I wish that I could promise that magic term “closure” to victims. But I am aware that even saying that can be offensive to survivors. I cannot determine when they find closure. There is no fast track healing. I can play my part, but I cannot achieve healing by decree. What I do know is that I can make things worse and at times I know that I do. Promises must be kept. Deadlines must be respected. Established norms must be respected. To victims any attempt at covering-up or backtracking on norms signifies betrayal. "A precondition for the Church’s providing a service of spiritual healing to victims is that the Church learns to be a truly restorative community, a community which welcomes and accepts the wounded into its community on their terms." "For restorative justice to work in a Church environment then the Church becomes a restorative community – a restorative community for all. Priests who have dedicated their entire lives to ministry and witness feel damaged and wounded by the sinful acts of others. They need new encouragement and enhancement, but always rejecting any sense of denial of what happened or feeling by priests that that they are the primary victims." "The liturgy of lament in fact was a truly restorative moment for many who took part and they felt that they had encountered in it a Church which was beginning to identify with their hurt and their journey." "A restorative justice approach which admits and addresses the truth in charity offers a useful instrument to create a new culture within the Catholic Church which enables the truth to emerge not just in the adversarial culture which is common in our societies, but in an environment which focuses on healing." "A Church which becomes a restorative community will be one where the care of each one of the most vulnerable and most wounded will truly become the dominant concern of the ninety-nine others, who will learn to abandon their own security and try to represent Christ who still seeks out the abandoned and heals the troubled."
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