Restorative Responses

On the last day of the Catholic Mobilizing Network virtual conference, Harm, Healing and Human Dignity, I participated in a panel that was titled, Restorative Responses to Clergy Sexual Abuse, along with Janine Geske, Paula Kaempffer and Father Daniel Griffith. The four of us had the opportunity to talk about the many types of trauma that resulted from decades of clergy sexual abuse and the attending cover-up, and how we are working individually and collectively to bring healing to those who were harmed.

After being involved in events of all shapes and sizes over the years, I was totally impressed with how Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, Caitlin Morneau and their team pulled off a global, virtual event. Masterful! It’s one thing when you have a “tried and true” show flow for an event, but by pivoting to virtual, practically every element was different. Thanks and brava!

I hesitate to talk about how something was difficult for me personally, because with Restorative Justice work broadly, there are others, particularly those who experienced direct harm, who experienced much more trauma. But after three days of the conference, my course work for the work for my EMU Restorative Justice course, and some related work at our parish, I was spent. Grateful, but spent.

So it was energizing for me to serve as a circle keeper immediately after our panel. For a moment, I did have the “why did I volunteer to do this?” but was so happy I did. My circle was a diverse group of thoughtful people and once again, the circle experience brought me to a sacred place and touched my heart. It was a grounding and perfect way to end the conference. Again grateful.