Antoine Garapon explores restorative justice, abuse trauma, and how the Church seeks to rebuild trust after a historic crisis.
Newsroom (13/05/2026 Gaudium Press ) Antoine Garapon, the French magistrate and legal philosopher at the forefront of restorative justice in Europe, will be in Milan from May 25 to 27 for the Spring School “The Last Judgement: the Origins of the Generativity of Justice” at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. The event, organized with scholars Gabrio Forti, Emanuela Fronza, Claudia Mazzucato, and Arianna Visconti, reflects the profound rethinking of justice that has emerged in the wake of the Church’s abuse crisis.
That crisis, first experienced in France as a national trauma before becoming global, forced Catholic communities to confront a question once thought impossible: how to “repair the irreparable.” The work of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) marked a watershed moment. Its findings did more than expose the scale of abuse; they shifted the paradigm of response—from a strictly criminal framework toward recognition, listening, and reparation.
Garapon, a member of the commission and a former juvenile judge, has been deeply shaped by this transition. His latest book, The Reparative Way to Justice, emerges from years of listening to victims and reflecting on how institutions respond to profound moral failure. In his view, the abuse crisis has revealed the limits of traditional justice.
“The crimes we are talking about are crimes of intimacy,” Garapon explains. Often committed in private settings such as confessional spaces or dormitories, they leave little evidence. The passage of time further complicates prosecution: many victims speak only years later, sometimes after the perpetrator has died. Yet the most disturbing inversion lies elsewhere. “Sexual crimes are the only ones in which the perpetrator tends to feel innocent, while the victim feels guilty.”
This paradox underscores the inadequacy of a purely criminal response. Garapon argues that legal systems have mistakenly treated sexual abuse as a form of bodily injury, reducible to measurable harm. In reality, the damage strikes at the core of identity. “It is not a loss of possessions, but an impediment to being,” he says—one that may manifest as isolation, depression, or even suicidal thoughts.
For this reason, he defines sexual abuse as a “foundational crime,” one that disrupts the very process of humanization. Frequently perpetrated by figures entrusted with guiding young people into adulthood, such acts invert their mission. Instead of nurturing growth, they condemn victims to what Garapon describes as a diminished existence. He recalls the testimony of a seventy-year-old survivor who told him, “All my life, I’ve been nine years old.”
The institutional dimension of these crimes lies at the heart of the Church’s reckoning. The most difficult step, Garapon notes, has been acknowledging that abuse was not simply a series of individual sins, but a radical betrayal of the Church’s mission. An institution that claims to teach love and freedom instead inflicted despair, leaving victims trapped in a psychological state where the abuser continues to inhabit their inner life “like a persecutory intruder.”
Against this background, the demand most often voiced by victims is strikingly simple: to be believed. Recognition, Garapon emphasizes, precedes compensation. It requires the Church to relinquish any claim to moral superiority and to accept that it cannot define what is best for those it has harmed. Generic appeals to human sinfulness are insufficient to address wounds of such magnitude.
This is where restorative justice enters—not as a replacement for criminal law, but as a complementary path. Garapon describes it as an effort not to calculate compensation, but to “restart life.” Even financial reparation, when offered, serves a symbolic purpose. It does not claim to measure the immeasurable; rather, it gives tangible weight to the institution’s acknowledgment of wrongdoing. In cases involving multiple victims, significant payments can also become a test of sincerity—one that, he acknowledges, is not always met.
The implications extend beyond individual victims to entire communities. Abuse scandals have eroded trust among the faithful, raising questions about the Church’s credibility. For Garapon, the task is not merely to eliminate wrongdoing, but to rebuild the community by prioritizing the healing of victims. This requires confronting the deeper causes of institutional failure, including the fact that many victims are themselves members of religious life.
At the same time, restorative justice must remain flexible. Not all victims wish to engage directly with perpetrators—or even with Church representatives. In fact, Garapon notes that in about 80% of cases, the abuser is already deceased. The process therefore often involves a third-party approach, helping individuals reconcile with their pasts without imposing unwanted encounters. Respect for victims’ autonomy remains fundamental.
Looking ahead, Garapon sees the crisis as a call for deeper reform within the Church. While prevention and training are essential, they are not sufficient. More attention must be given to the realities of sexuality, loneliness, and emotional deprivation that can affect clergy life. Above all, he identifies a critical and often overlooked dimension: the misuse of the sacred.
“These crimes were committed not against the sacred, but with the sacred,” he observes—a realization that has prompted interdisciplinary research involving theologians, historians, anthropologists, and religious women. Their forthcoming work will examine how spiritual authority can be manipulated, and how such distortions might be prevented.
Ultimately, Garapon’s vision of justice transcends legal boundaries. Restorative justice, as he frames it, is not merely a technique but a cultural transformation—one that seeks to restore dignity, rebuild trust, and redefine the very purpose of justice. In confronting one of the darkest chapters of its history, the Church, he suggests, has been forced to rediscover that justice begins not with punishment, but with listening.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Avvenire
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