How Restorative Justice, Synodality Can Help Church Heal

Now is the time for the church to recognize and embrace the synergistic relationship between synodality and restorative justice, because though the 2023 Rome-based assembly has ended, the work of the synod is far from over. Engaging restorative justice now — putting to use its time-tested principles and practices in our parishes and ministries — can help us become the listening, reconciling church we are called to be. Though not regularly expressed in these terms, the synod on synodality is fundamentally a response to harm in the church. Injustices like clergy sexual abuse, clericalism, polarization and marginalization loomed large on the docket in Rome. Similarly, the restorative justice conference in Minneapolis looked at four specific areas of harm: injustice in the criminal legal system, clergy sexual abuse, racial injustice, and harms against Native peoples. In all these spheres, the church has been responsible for varying degrees of inflicting harm, perpetuating it, concealing it, or looking the other way.