Some schools use restorative justice to deal with past abuse - why not others?

Efforts by well-known Irish schools to address historical child sex abuse by their teachers and staff have shown the different approaches taken by the religious orders that ran them.

One approach that has come to public attention is restorative justice, a programme chosen by some schools in helping abuse survivors. To date, the Spiritans and Jesuits are the only religious orders in Ireland to provide such programmes for men sexually abused as boys in their schools.

The Spiritans have introduced a programme to help victims abused while attending schools including Blackrock College and Willow Park junior school in Dublin.

The Jesuits introduced such a programme for men abused as boys by Fr Joseph Marmion, who died in 2000, at their Clongowes Wood College, Crescent College Limerick and Belvedere College Dublin.

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However, the Jesuits do not extend the programme to men abused at other schools, nor has it put a programme in place for men who may have been abused as pupils by Patrick Potts, the first lay headmaster at Gonzaga College in Dublin.

He was principal there for 15 years before his death in 2020. He also faced abuse charges from his time as vice-principal at Greendale Community School in Kilbarrack, Dublin, before becoming headmaster at Gonzaga.

Restorative justice is an informal process that allows a person who has been harmed to engage in dialogue with the person or representative body they say has harmed them.

The process is confidential and voluntary for both sides. Generally, it works only when both sides want to take part. It means survivors have an opportunity to meet those who they may hold responsible for being party to their harm, and to tell them their story.

Dr Marie Keenan, associate professor at UCD’s School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, said restorative justice programmes were relatively rare in Ireland and this was regrettable.

“Survivors’ needs are varied,” she said. “Some do not want to go down the criminal justice route. In [some] cases the abuser may be dead, and survivors may not want to take the civil justice route, for their own reasons. Victim impact statements, for example, do not allow for the role of institutional actors in the abuse.”

Restorative justice is focused on the survivor rather than the offender. It addresses the harm done to the person who has survived the crime and how he or she might be healed

—  Dr Marie Keenan, associate professor at UCD’s School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice

Dr Keenan believes restorative justice programmes should be introduced to address the needs of survivors. They help abused people whose allegations were believed credible but where there was not enough hard evidence to bring criminal charges, she said.

In the justice system generally, emphasis tends to be on the offender, the crime or crimes involved, the punishment, with redress an added element in the civil context.

Restorative justice, on the other hand, is focused on the survivor rather than the offender. It addresses the harm done to the person who has survived the crime and how he or she might be healed. The perpetrator, if still alive, is given an opportunity to take part voluntarily – to meet their victim – and understand the damage they have done.

In successful instances, this can greatly assist healing where the survivor is concerned. In cases where the perpetrator is dead, the institution to which he belonged may act in lieu.

The Catholic Church-funded Towards Healing service and the independent One in Four agency, which assists abused people, have facilitated instances of restorative justice where requested to by abuse survivors, but cases have been comparatively few.

More recently in Ireland, where some leading private fee-paying schools are concerned and the abuse perpetrator is deceased, relevant religious orders have acted in lieu of “the criminal” as part of a restorative justice process and agree to meet the person abused as a child in one of their schools.

Last November, the Spiritan order and four of their past pupils at Willow Park and Blackrock College jointly launched a restorative justice programme for survivors of abuse at schools and institutions run by the order.

The four men concerned – John Coulter, Corry McMahon, Louis Hoffman, Philip Feddis – said they were “representative of a large group of people, many of whom we know, who were abused in Spiritan schools”.

Advised by Dr Keenan, over the previous 20 months they had by then taken part in a restorative process which involved meeting the Spiritan leadership team.

Along with Spiritan provincial Fr Martin Kelly and the order’s safeguarding officer, Liam Lally, they announced an independent restorative justice programme for other abused past pupils of Spiritan schools. It was facilitated by Tim Chapman, a leading practitioner in the area, and the programme was funded by the Spiritans.

Mr Chapman, for his part, has recalled how memories of abuse remained very vivid for Willow Park/Blackrock survivors to whom he had spoken.

Underneath they’re still carrying a very hurt 12-year-old child inside them and it’s really quite moving to hear how they have been carrying that, that pain for most of their lives

—  Tim Chapman

They had “expressed, in often graphic detail, what happened to them and the extraordinary thing is that they remember it as if it was yesterday – and we are talking about things that may have happened 40, maybe more than 40 years ago,” he said.

“They can still smell the perpetrator, they can still see the saliva at the edge of his mouth, they can still feel the hand on them. It’s very difficult to listen to.

“And then they would talk about the impact it has had on their lives. That varies again. Some of them, on the surface you’d think are very, very successful people but underneath they’re still carrying a very hurt 12-year-old child inside them and it’s really quite moving to hear how they have been carrying that, that pain for most of their lives.”

A report resulting from a similar two-year restorative justice process involving the Jesuits was published last August. Titled A Restorative Response to the Abuse of Children Perpetrated by Joseph Marmion SJ, it was prepared by independent restorative justice practitioners Catherine O’Connell and Barbara Walshe.

Altogether, 62 Jesuit past pupils took part, all alleging abuse by Fr Marmion, mostly at Belvedere College in Dublin.

Fr Marmion taught at Clongowes Wood College from 1962 to 1965, at Crescent College Limerick from 1960 to 1962, and 1965 to 1969, and at Belvedere College from 1969 until his removal in 1978. Past pupils involved in that process were from all three schools and described intimidation, physical and psychological abuse by the priest.

Also involved were 51 Irish Jesuits who “overwhelmingly” expressed “a strong sense of shame, sadness, anger, disbelief, guilt and humiliation at the abuse perpetrated by Joseph Marmion”.

What he had done was “a gross betrayal of everything they had stood for throughout their working and spiritual lives as they wrestled with questions as to why it had gone on for so long undetected and unacknowledged by their society,” they said.

For their part Ms O’Connell and Ms Walshe felt “the process raised further questions for the Jesuit Order: the naming of other Jesuit priests who had abused and were not named publicly, and the situational risk for children globally posed by using Confession for abusive purposes. They have also been challenged by past pupils and each other to explore further external processes in relation to governance and oversight.”

Dr Keenan said restorative justice was now “being offered to victims of crime in many jurisdictions across the globe, in addition to criminal and civil justice currently available”.

The process was “non-adversarial and is designed to put victims at the centre, within a context of respect for all. Validation, vindication, exercising voice, victim participation in the design, accountability and truth telling are core. Acknowledgment of wrongdoing is a prerequisite for offender or institutional participation, otherwise restorative processes are not suitable,” she said.