Restorative Justice

Recently I listened to a radio interview in which a high school principal described the beneficial outcomes of her school’s restorative justice approach to problems such as conflict and violence in her school.  She reported that when students and their parents gain an understanding of each other and grasp their differing perspectives, then reconciliation and community building replace divisions.  The interview caused me to reflect on my observations of community justice practiced in northern Canada, and of some situations I encounter as I speak with inmates at the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre in Ontario.

In the small, isolated communities in the Northwest Territories and in Yellowknife, I observed how some criminal offenses were diverted from the courts to community justice committees.  In Yellowknife I frequently sat as a member on such a committee.  An offender considered eligible by the crown prosecutor and others would appear before the Justice Committee. Prior to the hearing committee members would review the police statement describing what had occurred and consider how we would proceed.  Proceedings would then begin; the offender and persons whose lives he or she had impacted such as parents or friend of a teenager may be present.  A police person, store owner, employer, property owner, or other person victimized by the offender might also attend the session.

In the hearings, members of the Justice Committee questioned the offender and all others present. The goal of the restorative justice program was to restore unity in the community. Attitudes of offenders changed as they learned of suffering their actions had caused for parents, employers, home owners and others. The attitudes of committee members and victims often softened as they observed changed perspectives in the offender, circumstances of his or her life, and regret for having caused hardship for others.  The Community Justice Committee would then decide on whether to send an offender back to court to face charges or develop a plan for restitution and learning.  This may include assigned reading and an essay, community service, or other remedy.  When the offender completed the assigned actions charges would be dropped and the offender would avoid having a criminal record.  

Prior to the advent of airplanes, electricity, phones, snowmobiles, RCMP, etc. in the far north, community was essential for survival; No one could survive alone, especially in the long winter months. Community members actively worked to bring about reconciliation and peace when harm occurred.  Offenders who failed to change their ways were banished from the community and thereby rendered at risk of death.  It is not surprising that restorative justice flourished in the north and evolved in modern times to community justice committees.

I wonder what it would take to change the focus of our justice system, to adopt restorative justice in appropriate cases in place of retributive justice.  Is it possible for us to find ways of building unity and peace rather than using methods that deepen divisions among us?

- Sister Patricia McKeon, csj

Some related articles: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/opinion-eggleton-saint-germain-restorative-justice-1.4884839

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/restorative-justice-system-criminal-cases-youth-1.5213583

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/racist-facebook-posts-restorative-justice-1.4982510

https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2008-03-lmrj/2008-03-lmrj-eng.pdf

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

The phone rang as I crawled out of bed on January 1^st.  On the line was my brother wishing me a Happy New Year.  The previous evening, he and my sister-in-law had spent a night on the town, taking in dinner and a movie, the recent flick, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”.  Gord’s encouragement to see the TIFF-premiered story of Mr. Fred Rogers found me on an early morning hike to secure the two remaining tickets for the late afternoon showing.

My friend Yvonne and I settled into the SilverCity recliners to watch the famous Mr. Rogers, a preschool icon of the best in children’s television for over 30 years.  I was eager to hear his message.  As a young adult in the ‘60s, I had glanced at Mr. Rogers’ program and dismissed it as juvenile, even saccharine.  How wrong I was.

As “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” unfolded, I was pulled into the amazing talent of this intelligent, faith-filled artistic, caring man who understood children and treated each one with the utmost kindness and respect.

Through his mantra, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” and the activities of life in an onscreen cartoonish neighborhood, Mr. Rogers taught children about the tender virtues of love, patience and respect while living and loving in their own neighborhood.

The huge swath of Mr. Rogers’ influence was demonstrated when a group of young adult passengers on a subway recognized Mr. Rogers and launched into a spontaneous and rousing rendition of his theme song.  Without doubt, I realized that Mr. Rogers’ work had left an indelible mark on lives that spanned several generations.

Mr. Roger’s life was devoted not only to children but also to his employees and everyone whom he met.  In fact, the movie’s focus was seen through the eyes of journalist Tom Junod, a young husband and father whose life and the lives of his family were changed radically due to Mr. Roger’s influence.

I hope you can make time to see “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”.

A documentary on the life of Mr. Rogers, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor”  is currently on Netflix.

Submitted by Sister Jean Moylan

Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto Honoured

A recent post on the   Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto   website shares three stories of God’s compassionate love in our world: http://www.csj-to.ca/…/01/sisters-st-joseph-toronto-honoured

Sisters Catherine Marie Macdonald, Anne Schenck and Sue Mosteller recently received special tributes.

Remembering Sister Catherine Marie 

Sister Catherine Marie Macdonald, who passed away in the summer of 2019, was featured in the   Toronto Star   via an editorial by Vinay Menon on December 21, 2019, entitled   She Was The Best Cheerleader a Child Could Ever Have.  You can read the article on the Star's website.

Sister Anne Awarded the Sovereign's Medal

In recognition of her founding Furniture Bank, Sister Anne Schenck was awarded the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteering.

Her entry can be found on the   Governor General of Canada's website. 

 

Sister Sue  Appointed  to   the Order of Canada

Sister Sue Mosteller was appointed to the Order of Canada which honours people who have made extraordinary contributions to the nation.  She was interviewed for a  Globe and Mail   article on December 27, 2019 which can be read on the Globe & Mail website here.    

We appreciate the celebration and recognition that has been shown to these three Sisters. 💗

Let Goodness Prevail

On the sixth day of creation, God, the Creator, ”looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good!” Gen. 1:31 (from The Message)

Such a message of hope for us in these days of fake news, the violence of wars, natural disasters, racism, verbal abuse at so many levels and even genocide: goodness is inherent in all of creation. It is in our DNA, and it is now that we as a species are called to live that reality of being a force for goodness in this world.

In my personal experience of facilitating and co-ordinating Kairos Blanket Exercises, I, with the facilitators and participants have the privilege of seeing how truth, when revealed and received by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, is freeing. For the Indigenous peoples, their story is told: of the impact of residential schools, of being given Hudson Bay blankets as “gifts” that were full of the small pox virus, of the seizure of lands that were sources  of food, of the murdered and missing indigenous women and children…boys and girls, of the Indian Act that reduced whole nations to being put on small isolated reserves and forbidden to practice their spirituality or cultural practices, and who were “assimilated” into the white society to be made “civilized”, as the settlers defined the meaning of the term of being “civilized”.   The non-Indigenous participants hear this same story as told by an Indigenous and a non-Indigenous facilitator. If the participants come with an open mind, heart and will, they are INformed, TRANSformed, and empowered to work together to seek ways of “Returning to Harmony” (see Richard Wagamese’s article: https://teacherlauragroome.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/returning-to-harmony.pdf

For ALL participants, the telling and hearing of this story together is the beginning education of the truth of Canadian history: painful to tell and to hear but nonetheless a vehicle for further dialogue, leading to sowing initial seeds for reconciliation, or restoring a relation of collaboration that once existed. See Murray Sinclair speak about reconciliation in this 4-minute video https://www.csps-efpc.gc.ca/video/ssontr-eng.aspx

Senator Murray Sinclair, the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was issued in 2015, quotes:"It is education that got into this and it is education that will get us out of it.”

Being a retired teacher and educator, I am convinced that education is a beginning to living in right relationship, if we work together toward this. We are ALL inherently GOOD: we can choose to live out of that belief in all our interactions.

Submitted by Kathleen Lichti, CSJ

MARY AND JOSEPH - THE DISPLACED

Throughout this year’s Advent journey, a journey Pope Francis calls a ‘Journey of Hope’, lived in the joy of the Gospel message, I pondered what the journey to Bethlehem must have been like for Mary and Joseph. Perhaps, unintentionally, I have always held on to the naive image of the ‘tranquil’ scene of Jesus in the manger, where Mary and Joseph, some shepherds and a few animals, lovingly welcomed Him.  In light of Pope Francis’s invitation, followed up by the invitation to participate in this Advent blog series, I was struck by how noisy it must have been, and how so many people nowadays still are forced to flee, facing separation from family and friends.

In excerpts from Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato ‘Si [Praise be to You] these past weeks, we have seen that he challenges us, women and men of faith, to respond to his urgent plea to care for our world, our common home, to take swift and united action to eradicate the wrongs of the past. According to Pope Francis, the heart of the problem is that we humans no longer see God as the Creator, often seeing other living creatures as mere objects subjected to arbitrary human domination merely for our selfish purposes. Pope Francis encourages us to view humanity not as having ‘dominion’ over the earth, but to recognize that everything is interconnected and that all creation is a kind of universal family meant to live in harmony.

So, I turn to the image that struck me this Advent - Mary and Joseph walking into the unknown.  Joseph, eyes focused on the endless barren desert road, leading the donkey carrying the woman he loves.  Their plans were not changed by their desire, but by the demands of another, who wielded power over them. The journey they were on was not a quiet, solitary one. Undoubtedly, it was a noisy, confusing caravan of people forced to leave familiar places, occupations and customs, heading to an unknown destination. I may have been aware of this in the past, but admit that I have never before taken the time to reflect on this aspect of their journey.  

I am reminded of my experience as a seminarian at St. Joseph’s Chapel at the Canadian Forces Base in Borden in 1988, where we ‘welcomed’ 4000 refugees displaced from their homes in Kosovo. How well I remember all the preparation made by groups like the CWL and Knights of Columbus, to provide as much support as possible. Naturally, we had no idea who these people were, nor what they had been through until they shared their many stories of sadness, of loss and longing for some peace and quiet.  Amidst all of this unsettledness we also heard stories of faith in God, of hope, of joy, and of gratitude for being able to come here. In Canada, they found a haven where they could start a new life, akin to what my own parents had looked for when they came to Canada. These Kosovo refugees were the ones who, Pope Francis says, had become victims of poverty at the hands of rich nations relying on us to respond to their cries for help.  Their spiritual poverty, of course, was an even darker place, where we tried to bring light and hope by sharing our resources. To this day, as in the time of Jesus, the displacement of people is not because they want to leave their homeland. Like my parents, parents continue to search and take risks for better futures for their children and grandchildren. 

Mary and Joseph took refuge in a simple stable, the shelter for animals. In this makeshift home their ‘bedding’ was straw, the fruit of the earth. Amidst the noise and smell, in the uncertainty, there was love, there was faith. And this is where Jesus was born, frail and depending on his parents for everything.  May we remember that Jesus chose to be born in a humble manger.  In His unassuming way, we are saved from individual sin and those communal sins evident in our cities, our countries, our world. God never stops loving us, but is always there offering us the grace which will free us to respond to the cry of the poor, the lost, the homeless, the addict, the refugee, the stranger in our midst. 

Encouraged by Pope Francis’s desire and prayer for a change of heart in all peoples, let us respond as one to the needs of our suffering sisters and brothers. Let us pay attention to their cries and pleas echoing the cries of the entire earth, our common home. Dear sisters and brothers, while you celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace with your family and friends, listen with your heart to His invitation to see every woman, man and child as sister or brother, gifts from God with whom to share all the God-given gifts of our beautiful earth.

- Father Ian Riswick, Chaplain of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood in Toronto