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From the Director's Desk... |
| [Woodstock Report, March 2000, No. 61]
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This issue of the Woodstock Report features a lively and enlightening panel discussion we recently held entitled "The U. S. Penal System: Restorative and/or Retributive Justice," coordinated by Woodstock senior fellow Raymond B. Kemp. Ray is a priest of the archdiocese of Washington who co-directs, with Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., Woodstock's Preaching the Just Word program. Prior to joining Woodstock in June of 1992, Ray served as the pastor of two of Washington's African-American parishes and also served as the secretary for parish life and worship in the Archdiocese of Washington. It was in his parish work and his continuing pastoral ministry that Ray developed his keen concern for prisoners and the penal system. He and the panelists we feature are all concerned, as you'll see, that the penal system is "broken." They've come to this conviction out of their own personal and painful experience either as judges, lawyers, convicted criminals, prison chaplains, theologians, or friends and advocates. Their grief is palpable for both victims and perpetrators, but especially for the way in which justice is exercised and healing effected. Don't expect to find answers, solutions, or clear proposals for future improvement of the system here. What you will find, rather, is the crystallization of questions for future addressùquestions that arise out of the experience of pain. And that's just as it should be. Grief is the proper beginning of social criticism according to scripture scholar, Walter Brueggemann. Reflecting on the Jewish Exodus from slavery in Egypt to life in the Promised Land, Brueggemann says: The grieving of Israel...is
the beginning of
Our panelists, I think you'll find, are very much in this
Yours warmly in the Lord, James L. Connor, S.J.
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