|
Read the Reflection:
Restoration or Exclusion?
Restorative Justice is a process that is now well recognized in our Justice system and sometimes reference is made to it in press reports. It is also being used more in our schools as a way of correction and last year was promoted by our own Bishops. In short, Restorative Justice is not so much concerned with the criminal action as such and the appropriate punishment, but rather with the results of the crime and how the harm done can be addressed. It is a truly Christian path of justice and is certainly a Marist way. Marists are called to be "instruments of Divine Mercy” and Restorative Justice is a practical way of doing that. We are in the Church season of Lent which is a time for repentance and putting things right in our own lives and especially in our relationships with others. It is time for what St Paul calls for in his letter to the Ephesians when he exhorts: “Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.” A beautiful parable of Jesus about Restorative Justice is that of the Prodigal Son. I am sure you all know this story. The boy had committed a crime in the eyes of any Jew because he had broken the fifth commandment. He had rejected his responsibility towards his father and also, for that matter, towards his brother and local community. He continued to live a dissolute life and is portrayed as a serious and serial offender. But eventually he comes around to admitting his guilt. He laments his forfeited relationship with his father and he takes responsibility for his actions: humbling himself, returning home and begging forgiveness. The father humbles himself as well by running in an undignified way to meet him at the outskirts. He sets about restoring the shattered relationship by calling him a son again, and he honours him with a party rather than shaming him. The father’s restorative gesture enabled honour to be restored in both of them. Just as the boy’s admission of wrongdoing served to restore honour to his humiliated father, so the father’s open-hearted acknowledgement of his son’s repentance, and his reinstatement of him as a son, ended his humiliation and restored his dignity. The elder brother however, does not accept the offender back, he want punishment and exclusion. We call this Distributive Justice – giving what one deserves. The parable is left open-ended and we do not know what would have eventuated. It is intended to leave us all pondering where we stand on such matters, what kind of justice we believe in. Do we believe in a justice that is tempered with mercy, and that tends, through repentance, toward forgiveness, reconciliation and reintegration? Or do we believe in the older brother’s version of justice – one that equates justice with punishment and exclusion. Do we believe, in short, in a justice that restores or a justice that excludes? Any parent who has intervened in disputes between their children soon comes to realize that it is often both impossible and unnecessary to trace the long train of angry acts back to the first little insult that started it rolling. Instead, the issue becomes one of somehow discharging the existing anger, helping each child remember that they are all important to each other and that their behaviour is disrupting the lives of everyone around them, then perhaps joining with them in searching for ways to avoid such problems in the future. In such circumstances there is an acceptance of the fact that: 1. they cannot continue in this fashion without life becoming worse 2. the antagonism between them is not a private matter 3. for the sake of all they have a responsibility to find ways to put their disputes behind them. I well remember in 1981 when Pope John Paul II met the gunman Mehmet Ali Agca who shot him during a public audience. We didn’t know what was actually said but the picture of that meeting was on the front cover of ‘Time’ magazine. Mehmet was guilty and was imprisoned - but that meeting symbolized a readiness to restore a broken relationship. The Pope was acting out in his own life the lesson of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, even though naturally he would have had some negative feelings about his would-be assassin. The Marist spirituality calls us to think, judge, feel and act like Mary and in that way be instruments of God’s Divine Mercy. I’m sure Mary would have been very angry with Judas and probably also with the cowardliness of the Apostles. It’s quite normal to feel anger when one has been hurt by another, but how do we think Mary would have acted? Probably in the spirit of the teaching of St Paul when he said to the Ephesians “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger, and do not leave room for the devil.” Maybe Lent is a time for us to reflect on our attitude of compassion and how we, as Marists, go about rebuilding relationships that have been broken by some misdeed. Most of us are not associated with serious crime but we are all involved in situations where harm has been done through someone’s bad deed. The most common image of justice in the West is a set of scales, symbolizing the balance of rights and obligations or deeds and deserts. The prophetic symbol of justice in the Old Testament Bible, however, is a mighty, surging river. God spoke through the Prophet Amos and said, “Away with your noisy songs! I will not listen to the melodies of your harps. But if you would offer me holocausts, then let justice surge like water, and goodness like an unfailing stream.” (Amos 5.24) I believe we need to be swept along in this mighty river, even if at times we don’t fully understand it, as if we are not able to keep our footing or security, at times perhaps flailing about for a life-line, sometimes perhaps not seeing the bank. But, remember, it is God’s river. |
