TALLIN, Estonia — Dr. Robert Ehnow, director of the diocesan Office for Life, Peace and Justice, was among the presenters at the 12th International Conference on Restorative Justice.
The conference, sponsored by the European Forum for Restorative Justice, was held May 28 to 31 in Tallin, Estonia. About 365 people from 44 countries, including more than 20 from the United States, attended.
Endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, restorative justice is an approach to criminal justice that seeks to go beyond punishment and to foster healing and reconciliation among perpetrators, victims and the community.
Ehnow co-presented a session with Tim Chapman, a visiting professor at the University of Sassari in Italy, that explored how institutions can use restorative practices.
Chapman spoke about the use of restorative practices to bring about healing after the clergy sex abuse scandal. For his part, Ehnow reflected on how the synodal process of listening and discernment embodied the principles of restorative justice.
Ehnow was appointed by Cardinal Robert W. McElroy to co-lead the Synod on Synodality at the diocesan level. He told the conference-goers that 11,000 people had participated in the initial diocesan synod, which utilized “restorative circles,” and another 12,000 had met in small-group sessions in a second round.
“This large engagement of people … is unprecedented and has been a model for civil discourse and synodality for the universal Catholic Church,” he said. “Dialogues on the difficult topics of joys, sorrows and hopes in Church life were explored in a restorative framework that produced scores of positive encounters without the usually expected disagreements and further polarization.”
About 365 people from 44 countries, including more than 20 from the United States, attended this year’s International Conference on Restorative Justice.
After the conference, Ehnow and his wife, Colette, visited Finland, Latvia and Lithuania as tourists.
On June 3, the couple made what Ehnow described as a “mini-pilgrimage” to Lithuania’s Hill of Crosses, where more than 100,000 crosses and crucifixes currently stand after having been left there by pilgrims. Pope St. John Paul II visited the site in early September of 1993.
Ehnow prayed at the Hill of Crosses and left a crucifix in honor of the Diocese of San Diego and his home parish, Sacred Heart Church in Coronado.
