Restorative justice — also called reparative or restorative justice — designates a way of thinking about justice that is not content with measuring a fault and answering it with a proportionate penalty, but that seeks first to repair the harm done, to restore the bonds broken by the offense, and to make possible, as far as may be, reconciliation between the offender, the victim, and the community. Where purely retributive justice asks "what law was broken and what does the offender deserve?", restorative justice asks "who has been hurt, what do they need, and whose duty is it to respond?"[1].
The word is recent: it spread from the 1970s-1990s onward, in the wake of Anglo-Saxon scholarship and practices of mediation between victim and offender. But the intuition is very ancient — and profoundly biblical. Long before modern vocabulary was fixed, Scripture already knew the restitution demanded of the thief (Ex 22), the reparative conversion of Zacchaeus rendering "fourfold" (Lk 19:8), the reconciliation of Joseph with his brothers (Gen 45 and 50), and above all the ministry of reconciliation entrusted by Christ to his Church (2 Cor 5:18-20). The Catholic Church therefore did not wait for the contemporary movement to hold that punishment has a "medicinal scope" and must "contribute to the correction of the offender"[2].
This article treats restorative justice as a moral and social principle: its definition and its stakeholders, the history of the modern movement, the way the Church receives and corrects it in light of her doctrine of punishment, its biblical roots, its sacramental matrix in Penance, and finally its discernment — what it contributes and what it can never replace. Related subjects — the death penalty, peace, solidarity, the dignity of the human person, and the common good — are referred to their own articles.
What Is Restorative Justice?
Restorative justice is not first a procedure, but a way of looking at what crime is and at what justice must produce. For classical justice, the offense is above all a violation of the law: the State is offended, the State prosecutes, the State punishes. For restorative justice, the offense is above all a wound inflicted on persons and relationships: there is a real victim, a real offender, an affected community, and bonds to rebuild.
A Definition: Repairing Rather Than Merely Punishing
The most cited definition is that of the American criminologist and Mennonite Howard Zehr, often called "the grandfather of restorative justice". He describes it as:
"A process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific offense and to collectively identify and address harms, needs, and obligations, in order to heal and put things as right as possible." — Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice, Good Books, 2002, p. 37[3]
Three words govern this definition. Harms: what counts is the real damage, not only the abstract rule broken. Needs: justice must answer the concrete needs of the victim — to be heard, to understand, to be repaired — and not only inflict a punishment. Obligations: the offender is not merely liable to a penalty, he is a debtor of reparation toward those he has harmed. The shift is considerable: from "how much must he suffer?" to "what must he repair, and how can the bond be restored?"[4].
The Three Stakeholders: Victim, Offender, Community
Restorative justice distinguishes itself by placing three stakeholders at the center, where criminal procedure often knows only two — the State and the accused — relegating the victim to the rank of mere witness.
- The victim regains a central place: the right to be heard, to speak the wound suffered, to ask questions, to receive reparation and, if she wishes, to journey toward forgiveness. Restorative justice was born in large part from an observation: classical criminal justice forgets the victim.
- The offender is not reduced to his act nor sent back to his punishment alone: he is called to face the harm done, to assume responsibility for it, to repair it concretely, and to reintegrate. This is a higher demand, not a lower one, than mere passive detention.
- The community — families, neighborhood, the social body — is recognized as itself wounded by the crime, and called to take part in restoring the bond.
Three Ways of Responding to Crime
To situate restorative justice, it is often compared with two other logics. These are not three enemy schools, but three finalities that can be combined — and that Catholic doctrine, as we shall see, holds together.
| Logic | Central Question | Focus | Risk If Alone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retributive | What law was broken? What does the offender deserve? | The fault and proportionate punishment | Degenerating into vengeance, forgetting the victim and the future |
| Rehabilitative | How to correct and reintegrate the offender? | The amendment of the offender | Reducing crime to a sickness, ignoring the justice owed to the victim |
| Restorative | Who has been hurt? What needs? What obligations? | Repairing the harm and the bond | Dissolving responsibility, denying expiation and the injured order |
Read this way, restorative justice does not abolish retributive justice: it reminds it that punishing is never an end in itself, but a means ordered to a greater good — reparation, conversion, social peace[5].
The Sources of a Modern Movement
While the intuition is ancient, the organized movement bearing the name restorative justice is dated. Knowing it avoids two symmetrical errors: believing that restorative justice is a purely secular and therapeutic invention foreign to the Gospel, or believing on the contrary that it always bore that name in Christian tradition.
Howard Zehr and the "Changing Lenses" (1990)
The founding text of the movement is Howard Zehr's book Changing Lenses, published in 1990. The title says it all: it is not a matter of seeing different things, but of looking at crime differently. Where the retributive "lens" sees a violated law calling for punishment, the restorative "lens" sees injured persons calling for healing. Zehr explicitly contrasts two sets of questions[6]:
Zehr thus contrasts two sets of questions: retributive justice asks about the law broken, its author, and the punishment he deserves, while restorative justice asks about the persons harmed, their needs, and who must answer for them[7].
Christian and Mennonite Roots
It must be stressed, for it is often ignored: the contemporary movement was born in a Christian milieu. Howard Zehr belongs to the Mennonite tradition, a Protestant family of the peace churches attached to nonviolence, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The first experiments in mediation between victim and offender (victim-offender reconciliation programs) emerged in Canada and the United States in the 1970s, led by facilitators inspired by their faith[8]. The underlying intuition — that crime breaks relationships and that justice must repair them — plunges its roots into the biblical reading of reconciliation. The secular movement later took up, broadened, and institutionalized an intuition of evangelical origin.
Legal and Institutional Recognition
From the 1990s-2000s onward, restorative justice moved from experimentation to official recognition.
- In 2002, the United Nations Economic and Social Council adopted Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programmes in Criminal Matters, giving the movement an international definition and framework[9].
- In France, the law of 15 August 2014 introduced restorative justice into the Code of Criminal Procedure (article 10-1): at every stage of proceedings, victim and offender may, under the aegis of an independent third party and with their consent, take part in a restorative justice measure[10].
What the Catholic Church Retains — and Corrects
The Church did not wait for the modern movement to conceive a justice that restores: her doctrine of punishment has long carried this dimension. But she integrates it into a broader vision, which holds together what secular currents tend to dissociate: reparation of the injured order, protection of the common good, the value of expiation, and mercy.
Punishment Has More Than a Punitive Function (CCC 2266)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists the finalities of punishment. The first is to redress the disorder introduced by the fault; but punishment also has a medicinal function, ordered to the amendment of the offender:
"The primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2266[11]
This paragraph is decisive for our subject. It refuses two excesses at once: the idea that punishment is only chastisement (the medicinal and reparative dimension is affirmed), and the idea that it is only care (reparation of the order and the value of expiation are maintained). Catholic justice is from the outset richer than retribution alone.
The Twofold Goal According to the Compendium: Reinsertion and Reconciliation
The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) explicitly formulates what the movement calls restorative justice. After recalling that punishment defends public order and corrects the offender, it sets a twofold goal:
"Punishment does not serve merely to protect the public order and to guarantee the safety of persons. Indeed, it also becomes an instrument for the correction of the offender […]. The goal to be sought is twofold: on the one hand, encouraging the reinsertion of condemned persons into society; on the other, fostering a reconciling justice, one capable of restoring harmony in social relationships disrupted by the criminal act." — Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 403[12]
The expression "a reconciling justice, capable of restoring relationships" is, word for word, a definition of restorative justice — predating the term's fashion in official French texts. The Compendium adds the pastoral dimension: prison chaplaincy, care for detainees and their dignity, are an integral part of this justice that seeks to lift up and not merely to detain[13]. The Compendium further surrounds criminal procedure with strict guarantees — truth, dignity of persons, refusal of torture — which protect the offender as well as the innocent[14].
Pope Francis: Dialogue, Encounter, Bonds Restored
Pope Francis took up and amplified this line. Before the International Association of Penal Law, on 15 November 2019, he called societies to move from a justice of exclusion to a justice of encounter:
"Our societies are called to advance toward a model of justice based on dialogue, on encounter, so that, wherever possible, the bonds affected by crime may be restored and the harm repaired." — Pope Francis, address to the International Association of Penal Law, 15 November 2019[15]
The same address states the diagnosis underlying the entire restorative approach — a crime does not only damage a law, but bonds:
"In every crime, there is an injured party and there are two damaged bonds: that of the person responsible for the crime with his victim, and that of that same person with society." — Pope Francis, 15 November 2019[16]
In the encyclical Fratelli Tutti (2020), Francis recalls that punishment must always be part of a process of healing and reintegration into society, and not of a vindictive logic; it is in the name of this same demand that he severely criticizes penalties that close off all horizons, going so far as to describe actual life imprisonment as a "hidden death penalty"[17]. On the death penalty itself, the Church's developed teaching is the subject of a separate article: the death penalty.
Holding Justice and Forgiveness Together (John Paul II, 2002)
There remains the most serious objection: by dint of insisting on reparation and reconciliation, do we not risk dissolving justice into soft indulgence? Saint John Paul II answered in advance, in his message for the 2002 World Day of Peace, No Peace Without Justice, No Justice Without Forgiveness. Forgiveness, he says, is not the opposite of justice but its fullness:
"Forgiveness is in no way opposed to justice, for it does not consist in setting aside the legitimate demands of repairing the injured order. Forgiveness aims rather at that fullness of justice which leads to the tranquillity of order […] : the profound healing of wounds which cause hearts to bleed." — Saint John Paul II, message for the World Day of Peace, 1 January 2002[18]
The central formula of the message — "forgiveness is opposed to resentment and revenge, not to justice"[19] — is the key to the entire Catholic balance: Christian restorative justice does not erase the debt, it pays it otherwise and more deeply, aiming not at the destruction of the offender but at the healing of all.
The Biblical Roots of the Justice That Restores
The restorative intuition is not borrowed by the Church from a secular modality: it runs through all of Scripture, from the Law of Moses to Saint Paul.
The Law of Restitution and the Conversion of Zacchaeus
From the Old Testament onward, the Law is not content with punishing theft: it demands restitution, sometimes multiplied. "When a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep" (Ex 22:1)[20]. Punishment is not only suffering inflicted: it aims to restore the victim to his right. It is exactly this logic that the conversion of Zacchaeus, the tax collector of Jericho, fulfills when he encounters Christ:
"Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold." — Gospel according to Saint Luke, 19:8[21]
Jesus' answer — "Today salvation has come to this house" (Lk 19:9) — shows that interior conversion and concrete reparation of the harm are not opposed: the second is the visible sign of the first.
Cain: God Protects Instead of Executing
The very first crime of Scripture, Cain's murder of Abel, already teaches a surprising lesson. God does not put the murderer to death: he sanctions him (wandering), but he sets a mark upon him so that none may kill him, and he takes his defense (Gen 4:13-16)[22]. Divine justice, from the origin, is not pure vengeance: it protects even the offender and leaves him a future. This is an Old Testament root of the idea that justice is never reduced to eliminating the aggressor — an idea Pope Francis would sum up: "it is a matter of rendering justice to the victim, not of executing the aggressor"[23].
Joseph and His Brothers: Reconciliation
The story of Joseph sold by his brothers (Gen 37-50) is one of the great biblical narratives of reconciliation. Having become powerful in Egypt, Joseph could have taken revenge; instead he chooses to forgive and to restore the broken fraternal bond: it is God, he says, who sent him to Egypt, and he refuses to put himself in God's place to judge his brothers — "Fear not: am I in the place of God?" (Gen 45:8; 50:19-21)[24]. Justice is not to be confused with resentment: it can aim, beyond reparation, at the restoration of communion.
Christ and the Ministry of Reconciliation
The New Testament makes reconciliation the very heart of Christ's work. Saint Paul can write that God "reconciled us to himself through Christ" and entrusted to the Church "the ministry of reconciliation":
"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. […] We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." — Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, 5:18-20[25]
Christ moreover demands that reconciliation precede even worship: "So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you […], go first and be reconciled with your brother" (Mt 5:23-24)[26]. And he makes fraternal correction a graduated path that seeks first to "gain your brother", not to exclude him (Mt 18:15)[27].
The Good Thief: Hope Until the End
Finally, on the Cross, Christ welcomes the good thief, a man justly condemned, who acknowledges his fault and turns to him:
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. — Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." — Gospel according to Saint Luke, 23:42-43[28]
This condemned man who dies reconciled founds, in Christian tradition, the right to hope of every prisoner: no fault, until the last instant, definitively closes the door of conversion. It is this conviction that animates prison chaplaincy and penitentiary pastoral care.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Christian Matrix
Before being a program of penal policy, restorative justice is, for the Catholic, a sacramental reality lived for twenty centuries: the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. Its very structure is restorative.
Contrition, Confession, Satisfaction
The Catechism distinguishes the acts of the penitent: contrition (sorrow for the evil done), confession (the avowal), and satisfaction — that is, reparation. Absolution remits the fault, but it does not dispense from concretely repairing the harm done to one's neighbor:
"Many sins wrong our neighbor. One must do what is possible in order to repair the harm (e.g., return stolen goods, restore the reputation of someone slandered, pay compensation for injuries). Simple justice requires as much." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1459[29]
Satisfaction, the Restorative Core of Penance
The word satisfaction comes from the Latin satisfactio, "the action of repairing an offense" (from satis, "enough," and facere, "to make"). Christian penance is not paid in pure suffering, but in proportionate reparation of the harm: restoring the stolen good, re-establishing the truth against slander, speaking well of the one denigrated[30]. We recognize, transposed into the spiritual order, the exact logic of restorative justice: identifying the harm, assuming responsibility for it, repairing it as far as possible, restoring the bond. Catholic confession is, in this sense, the oldest and most universal school of restorative justice.
Strengths and Limits: A Catholic Discernment
Restorative justice is neither a fashion to celebrate without reserve, nor a threat to reject wholesale. The Catholic compass invites discernment: receiving what it justly contributes, refusing what would, under its name, dissolve justice itself.
What Restorative Justice Contributes
- It restores the victim to her place, too often forgotten by a procedure centered on the State and the accused.
- It takes the offender's real responsibility seriously: not humiliating him passively, but calling him to face his act and repair it.
- It recalls that punishment is not an end in itself but a means ordered to a good: reparation, conversion, social peace — exactly what the Catechism and the Compendium teach.
- It opens a path of hope and reintegration, against the temptation of a society that "discards" offenders like waste.
Its Counterfeits to Avoid
But a misunderstood "restorative justice" can turn against justice. Catholic intelligence warns against several deviations:
- Denying sin and fault. Reducing crime to a mere "conflict" or a symmetrical "relational wound," as if victim and offender were two equally responsible parties, is an injustice to the victim. There is an offender and an innocent party; reconciliation presupposes truth, not its erasure.
- Removing all retributive and expiatory dimension. The Church maintains that punishment "redresses the disorder" and can have "the value of expiation"[31]. A purely therapeutic justice, which would on principle refuse any proportionate sanction, would no longer be Catholic justice but sentimentalism.
- Forcing forgiveness or short-circuiting the justice owed. Forgiveness is a free act of the victim, never an obligation imposed upon her; and it "does not consist in setting aside the legitimate demands of repairing the injured order"[32]. A victim cannot be required to "turn the page" in the name of reconciliation.
- Abandoning the protection of the common good. Society retains the right and duty to protect itself from dangerous aggressors: restoring bonds never dispenses from defending the common good and the safety of persons.
Justice AND Mercy: Why the Church Does Not Choose One Against the Other
The distinctive genius of Catholic doctrine is to not oppose justice and mercy, retribution and restoration. Punishment keeps its function of repairing the injured order; but this reparation has meaning only when turned toward the healing of persons and the rebuilding of the bond. The following table sums this up.
| What restorative justice contributes… | …but can never replace |
|---|---|
| The place restored to the victim | The victim's right to truth and justice |
| The active responsibility of the offender | The reality of sin and the fault committed |
| Reparation of the harm and the bond | The expiatory value of accepted punishment |
| Hope and reintegration | Protection of the common good and safety |
| Forgiveness offered | The victim's freedom to forgive or not |
Holding these two columns together: such is fully restorative justice according to the Church — a justice that "leads to the tranquillity of order" because it heals wounds "in depth"[33].
The Redemption, God's Restorative Justice
The ultimate foundation of all justice that restores is Christological. Sin broke the bond between God and humanity; divine justice demanded reparation. Yet God did not answer with the mere destruction of the offender: in his Son, he made himself repairer in our place. The Cross is the restorative act par excellence — a perfect "satisfaction" offered to the Father, which does not abolish the demands of justice but fulfills them in love, re-establishing the broken communion. Saint Paul can thus speak of a God who reconciles all things to himself and makes "peace by the blood of his cross" (Col 1:20)[34].
The spirituality of the Divine Will transmitted to Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947) inwardly illuminates this mystery: the soul that lives in the Divine Will is called to enter into Christ's reparative act, to "repair" with him for all, to restore to God the glory creation owes him and to draw good upon all men. Human restorative justice — repairing the harm, restoring the bond, giving hope — is then but a pale reflection, in the social order, of the one great Restoration: that by which God makes all things new in Christ[35].
For Further Reading
- The Death Penalty — the Church's developed teaching on capital punishment, the direct extension of the doctrine of punishment.
- The Dignity of the Human Person — the foundation: we restore persons; we never "discard" them.
- The Common Good — the protection of society, which restoring bonds never abolishes.
- Peace — "there is no peace without justice, there is no justice without forgiveness" (John Paul II, 2002).
- Solidarity — the social bond that crime breaks and that restorative justice seeks to rebuild.
- Political Charity — the social charity that crowns and surpasses the demand of justice.
Notes and References
The contrast between "retributive" questions (what law was broken? who did it? what does he deserve?) and "restorative" questions (who has been hurt? what are their needs? whose obligation is it to meet them?) is the classic formulation of Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses (1990) and The Little Book of Restorative Justice (2002). It has become the movement's standard pedagogical definition.
1Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2266: punishment has a "medicinal scope" and must "contribute to the correction of the offender," in addition to redressing the disorder and protecting public order. English text on vatican.va.
2Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice, Good Books, 2002, p. 37: "Restorative justice is a process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific offense and to collectively identify and address harms, needs, and obligations, in order to heal and put things as right as possible." English original here; French rendering in the body.
3The most cited "process" definition in penal literature is also that of Tony Marshall (1999): a process whereby all the parties with a stake in a particular offence come together to resolve collectively how to deal with the aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future (Restorative Justice: An Overview, Home Office, 1999, p. 5).
4Zehr himself specified that restorative and retributive justice are not absolute opposites: restorative justice seeks to reorient the finality of punishment toward reparation, without denying that the offender has obligations. This is exactly the position held by the Catholic doctrine of punishment (cf. CCC 2266; Compendium 403).
5Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice, Herald Press, 1990 (reissued as Changing Lenses: Restorative Justice for Our Times). Paraphrase: the "change of lenses" consists in moving from the question "what law was broken and what does the offender deserve?" to "who has been hurt, what are their needs, whose obligation is it?" (faithful summary of the book's central thesis, not verbatim quotation).
6 7The first victim-offender reconciliation programs were born in Canada and the United States in the 1970s, in a Mennonite milieu (peace churches). The case often cited as founding is that of Elmira (Ontario, 1974), where two young offenders who had caused property damage were brought together with their victims to make repair.
8United Nations Economic and Social Council, resolution 2002/12, Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programmes in Criminal Matters, 24 July 2002. The first international framework giving a definition of restorative justice.
9Law no. 2014-896 of 15 August 2014 on the individualization of sentences and strengthening the effectiveness of criminal sanctions, which introduces article 10-1 into the French Code of Criminal Procedure: at every stage of proceedings, victim and offender may take part in a "restorative justice measure," with their consent and under the supervision of an independent third party.
10Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2266, full text. The three finalities: redressing the disorder introduced by the fault; value of expiation if the punishment is voluntarily accepted; medicinal scope (amendment of the offender), in addition to defending public order.
11Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004, no. 403: the twofold goal of punishment — "encouraging the reinsertion of condemned persons into society" and "fostering a reconciling justice, one capable of restoring harmony in social relationships disrupted by the criminal act."
12 13Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 404: guarantees of criminal procedure — rigorous search for the truth, respect for the dignity and rights of the person, prohibition of torture, speedy trials, and fair compensation for victims of judicial error.
14Pope Francis, address to the participants of the 20th World Congress of the International Association of Penal Law, 15 November 2019 (vatican.va text): call for "a model of justice based on dialogue, on encounter," so that "the bonds affected by crime may be restored and the harm repaired."
15Pope Francis, same address, 15 November 2019: "In every crime, there is an injured party and there are two damaged bonds: that of the person responsible for the crime with his victim, and that of that same person with society."
16Pope Francis, encyclical Fratelli Tutti, 3 October 2020, no. 266: punishment must be part of "a process of healing and reintegration" into society. The expression "life imprisonment is a hidden death penalty" comes from his address of 23 October 2014 to a delegation of the International Association of Penal Law.
17Saint John Paul II, message for the 35th World Day of Peace, No Peace Without Justice, No Justice Without Forgiveness, 1 January 2002 (vatican.va text): "Forgiveness is in no way opposed to justice, for it does not consist in setting aside the legitimate demands of repairing the injured order. Forgiveness aims rather at that fullness of justice which leads to the tranquillity of order."
18Saint John Paul II, same message: "Forgiveness is opposed to resentment and revenge, not to justice."
19Exodus 22:1 (Hebrew numbering 21:37): the Law requires multiplied restitution from the thief (five oxen for an ox, four sheep for a sheep). Old Testament foundation of the reparation owed to the victim.
20Gospel according to Saint Luke 19:8-9: Zacchaeus undertakes to restore "fourfold" to those he has wronged; Jesus then declares: "Today salvation has come to this house." Restitution is the visible fruit of conversion.
21Genesis 4:13-16: God does not put Cain to death but sets a mark upon him so that none may kill him. Divine justice sanctions without destroying, and even protects the offender.
22Pope Francis, address of 15 November 2019: "It is a matter of rendering justice to the victim, not of executing the aggressor"; the Pope recalls the asymmetry between crime and punishment ("committing an evil does not justify imposing another evil in response").
23Genesis 45:8 and 50:19-21: Joseph forgives his brothers and restores the fraternal bond: "Fear not: am I in the place of God?" (Gen 50:19). A great biblical narrative of reconciliation.
24Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians 5:18-20: God "reconciled us to himself through Christ" and entrusted to the Church "the ministry of reconciliation."
25Gospel according to Saint Matthew 5:23-24: being reconciled with one's brother before presenting one's offering at the altar. Reconciliation takes precedence even over worship.
26Gospel according to Saint Matthew 18:15-17: fraternal correction, a graduated path that aims first to "gain your brother," not to exclude him.
27Gospel according to Saint Luke 23:42-43: the good thief and the promise of Paradise. Foundation of every convict's "right to hope" in Christian tradition.
28Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1459: "Many sins wrong our neighbor. One must do what is possible in order to repair the harm (e.g., return stolen goods, restore the reputation of someone slandered, pay compensation for injuries). Simple justice requires as much."
29Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1459-1460, on satisfaction as part of penance: reparation must, as far as possible, correspond to the harm done. Etymology of satisfaction: Latin satisfactio, "the action of repairing an offense."
30Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2266: punishment "redresses the disorder caused by the offense" and, voluntarily accepted, "takes on the value of expiation." The Church thus maintains the retributive and expiatory dimension, which a purely therapeutic justice would abolish.
31Saint John Paul II, Peace message 2002: forgiveness "does not consist in setting aside the legitimate demands of repairing the injured order." Forgiveness is never imposed on the victim nor substituted for the justice owed.
32Saint John Paul II, Peace message 2002: forgiveness aims at "the tranquillity of order," the "profound healing of wounds which cause hearts to bleed."
33Letter of Saint Paul to the Colossians 1:19-20: in him God willed to reconcile all things and to "make peace by the blood of his cross." The Redemption as universal restorative act.
34L. Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 2, 4 July 1899: Jesus constitutes Luisa "a fragrant victim to divine Justice," calling all her actions to shine "with the same pure and holy intentions as my own." This is the reparative act accomplished with Christ, prolonged by the 24 Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, an hour-by-hour prayer of the Passion in the same spirit of reparation.
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