Restorative circle process can transform, parishioner says

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Michelle Beasley, a Blessed Sacrament parishioner.

SANDY — Looking for ways to improve her participation in the diocesan prison ministry, Michelle Beasley, a Blessed Sacrament parishioner, completed Catholic Mobilizing Network’s Circle Keeper training June 26-29 in Washington, D.C.

“When you sit in a congregation, you could be sitting next to someone who has been incarcerated, and you don’t know that, but maybe no one talks to them, maybe no one welcomes them,” said Beasley, who also is a certified lay ecclesial minister. “So, how do you help those people to come back and be welcomed back into society? That was my original interest for learning about peacekeeping circles, because I wanted to be able to help them. In that process, as I learned more about the circle-keeping process, it opened up my mind to realize that this can be a useful tool in a parish setting.”

Catholic Mobilizing Network is a leader in restorative justice, which seeks to understand crime in terms of the people and relationships impacted, and to repair harm through Christlike transformative encounters. The organization seeks to empower Catholics “to end the death penalty, advance justice solutions aligned with Catholic values, and promote healing and restorative justice,” its website says.

One of those tools is the use of the restorative circle process, which “creates the conditions to build, strengthen and repair relationships through storytelling. In ministry settings, this methodology is well suited for synodal listening, communal discernment and attending to the wounds of trauma, harm and conflict,” according to CMN.

A former director of religious education and religious educator, Beasley particularly wanted to advocate for the elimination of the death penalty, a practice that is contrary to Catholic teaching.

The catechism on the death penalty was revised in 2018.

“Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church [2267]. “Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. … [and] … more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption. Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”

Promoting restorative justice is a way to help healing conversations that need to happen, said Beasley, who at the training learned to facilitate the restorative circle process that is a safe way to converse and connect on any subject. Participants sit in a circle and use a prop such as a rock, called a talking piece, to ensure everyone has an equal chance to speak and be heard.

“The whole idea is that you’re going to introduce each other; then you’re going to work to build a safe space so that people feel comfortable talking about whatever the particular topic is for that circle keeping session,” Beasley said. “You achieve this by different activities whereby you, the facilitator, reach out to the participants to help them to want to participate and feel safe and comfortable in sharing their thoughts.”

The experience also helped her personally, she said. “What I took away from this was the importance of vulnerability. If you allow yourself to be vulnerable, and other people allow themselves to be vulnerable in a trusting environment, the potential to learn and to receive grace from each other is exponential.”

Beasley hopes to share what she has learned with others interested in social justice. She is happy to teach these techniques to others who would like to use the circle keeping process and suggests those who are interested reach out to her through Blessed Sacrament Parish.

On July 28 Beasley taught a class   “Visiting the Prisoner - Exploring Our Ministry” at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church.

 She recommends two books for those interested in restorative justice and circle keeping: Harm, Healing, and Human Dignity: A Catholic Encounter with Restorative Justice and The Little Book of Circle Processes: A New/Old Approach to Peacemaking.

“Everything we need to make positive change is already here,” she said, quoting from the first book. “So [circle keeping] is a tool that allows us to tap into those gifts that we already have that we may not know exactly how to reach. It’s a way to connect with another human being honestly and to talk about things where you may not in a normal circumstance have the opportunity to reach that level. But I think the important part to take is that it is definitely tied to that whole synodal process that is so alive with us right now.”