There was the man who had been sexually
abused as a boy by his priest. The priest who felt shunned within the
Catholic Church after he spoke out against such abuse. The husband who
had never told his wife about his assault decades earlier. The couple in
their 80s who raised seven children in the church but finally,
tearfully, decided to leave the pews.
They’ve all been
participants in a healing circle, a pilot program launched in Boston a
year ago by the Voice of the Faithful (VOTF), an organization of
progressive Catholics formed in 2002 in response to the priest sex abuse
scandal. Based on a restorative justice model, the circles allow those
who have suffered harm to meet in a small group and tell their stories.https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2015/09/25/healingcircle/1IxkxFysabd8rW36IoOLOM/story.html
