Restorative Justice in Schools

Restorative Justice is often put forward as a credible alternative to traditional policing and the use of prisons, strategies based on a naïve knowledge of the criminal/carceral world where crimes are committed as a result of an individual choice with knowledge of the consequences and being a criminal is a way of life that pays dividends to the criminal which soothing discussions about “making things right” will generally fall on deaf ears, except as a hustle to evade traditional punishment.

However, this article from the Washington Post about using it in schools, is actually very insightful and a place and a population that could respond to it.

An excerpt.

“As communities across the country beef up police presence in schools, Denver may become a national counterpoint Tuesday, when officials plan to sign an agreement to limit the role of law enforcement at the city’s schools — a move that could mean fewer students will face arrest or citation for disciplinary infractions.

“Denver’s effort comes in a metropolitan area that is often at the forefront of debates over school violence since the mass shootings at Columbine High School in 1999. More recently, the massacre last July at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., again pushed security concerns into the spotlight. Both of those shootings were just outside Denver.

“In places often farther from such attacks, impassioned calls have been made for doubling up on officers or creating school police forces as the nation grapples with how to respond to the Dec. 14 rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

“In Denver, the approach will be decidedly different. Leaders from the city’s police department and public school system are to sign an eight-page contract that will bring detail to often-murky questions about the role of police in schools. The agreement emphasizes differences between student offenses that should be handled by educators and those that need police action, urges de-escalation of campus conflict when possible, and supports “restorative justice” practices that focus on making amends for misconduct rather than punishing for it.

“Denver Superintendent Tom Boasberg said the move marks a “step forward” for the system of 84,000 students. “We believe that an effective restorative justice approach makes schools safer, helps keep our kids in school and on track to graduation, and makes kids learn from their mistakes and make them right,” he said.

“In day-to-day school life, Boasberg said, he expects less reliance on police ticketing and out-of-school suspension.

“It’s not, ‘You did something wrong, go home for five days and watch television,’ ” he said. “It’s, ‘What did you do wrong? Who did you harm? How are you going to make them whole, and what are you learning from this?’ ”

California’s Realignment Program

The result is a crime wave, as reported by the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

An excerpt.

“Implemented in October 2011, Governor Jerry Brown’s Realignment law (AB109), has re-classified thousands of criminals as non-serious, non-violent, and non-sexual offenders and prohibited them from receiving prison sentences for committing new, so-called low-level felonies or violating parole. Under Realignment, if a felon’s current and prior convictions are from this “non, non, non” category the sentencing options are: a short term in an overcrowded county jail, light supervision on probation, a treatment program, home detention with a GPS ankle bracelet or a combination of these. According to many Sheriffs, Police Chiefs, and District Attorneys, a lot of these so-called low level criminals are dangerous.

“Sacramento County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jason Ramos said that the law has put more “people on the streets with a higher propensity to commit crimes.” (The Sacramento Bee, February 6). Among the “non, non, nons” are sex offenders not considered high-risk and criminals convicted of vehicular manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon. (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, February 3).

“Many of the criminals Realignment categorizes as “low risk” are committing new violent crimes. During 2012, the first full year since Realignment took effect, nine of California’s largest law enforcement agencies reported increases in murder, rape, robbery, and theft. In the city of Sacramento, violent crime went up by 5%. However, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department reported a 12% violent crime increase in its jurisdiction. In the cities of Folsom, Rancho Cordova, and Roseville, violent crime increased by at least 15%. This increase marks the end of five consecutive years of decline in overall annual crime. (The Sacramento Bee, February 6).

“Bakersfield had experienced the same drop in crime rates from 2007 to 2011. But this changed dramatically in 2012. According to the Bakersfield Police Department, the crime rate last year was 556 reported crimes per 10,000 citizens. In 2011, the rate was 475. The number of murders nearly doubled, while rape increased by 23.4%, burglary by 15.6%, robbery by 23.4%, and auto theft by 35.7%. Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green blames the rise in crime on Realignment. (Bakersfield Now News, February 4).

“In January, Forbes ranked Oakland, California, as America’s third most dangerous city in 2012, and number one for violent robberies. The FBI preliminary crime report for 2012 showed increases in all crimes including murder by 3.9%, rape by 35.6%, robbery by 37.6%, assault by 5.2%, burglary by 25.6%, theft by 32.2%, and motor vehicle theft by 13.9%.

“Stockton, California, was ranked eighth, with the FBI report showing a 94.1% increase in homicide, a 33.3% increase in rape, a 27% increase in robbery, and a 23.1% increase in assault. While overall property crime was down 1%, burglaries were up 14.0% and motor vehicle thefts jumped by 41.5%.

“Many Southern California cities have also seen major increases. Violent crime in Long Beach is up 3%, with a 15% increase in homicide, a 50% increase in rape, and double-digit increases in property crime. Violent crime in Oceanside rose by nearly 10%, in Lancaster the increase was over 17%, in Orange 19%, in Simi Valley 40%, in Escondido 33.5%, and in Santa Clarita over 47%.

“San Diego experienced a 6.9% increase in crime in 2012 compared to 2011. Police Chief William Lansdowne attributed this to the downsizing of the SDPD and AB 109’s mandated movement of inmates to the county jail. The number of murders, rapes, aggravated assaults, and thefts have all risen sharply from the previous year. Nearly one quarter of the approximately 2,100 former prison inmates that the state has released to the county over the past year have committed new crimes. (Fox5, San Diego).

Education Can Rehabilitate

If it is coupled with an internal individual decision by the criminal to change, but even modest efforts, like this reported by the Northeast Mississippi News, helps open up the world of learning to the illiterate.

An excerpt.

“Mississippi has the second highest incarceration rate in the nation.

“Each inmate admitted to a Mississippi detention facility is different, but state Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps says most of them have two things in common – a dependency on drugs or alcohol and an inability to read past a middle-school level.

“The average Mississippi Department of Corrections inmate reads on a sixth-grade level when admitted to a corrections facility. Half of the state’s inmates never finished high school.

“Epps said the commonly heard maxim that prison cells can be built based on a state’s literacy rates at third grade isn’t entirely true but it’s close.

“I absolutely believe that someone who is illiterate has a better chance of being an inmate – they are coming in on a sixth-grade reading, writing and arithmetic level,” he said. “We don’t see a lot coming in our system with a Bachelor of Science or arts or a master’s or Ph.D.”

“Epps said the reason people with lower literacy levels are more susceptible to criminal behavior is the lack of opportunity they have.

“There are individuals I’m aware of with degrees who are having trouble finding jobs,” he said. “If a person at the sixth-grade level doesn’t have a GED or high school diploma, their (lower) quality of life is probably going to lead to criminal activity and they’ll probably get in trouble.”

“The National Assessment of Adult Literacy publishes a study each decade comparing literacy of incarcerated adults to literacy of adults not in the prison system.

“The 2003 Literacy Behind Bars study, the latest available, found that adults living in prison had significantly lower literacy scores in prose, document and quantitative reading than adults living in households, especially when it comes to quantitative literacy.

Punishment Policy Askew

Though all indications are that the tough-on-crime approach worked extremely well—if the data is examined from reason rather than ideology and with the knowledge that criminals with extensive rap sheets are dangerous because they are committed to being criminals not necessarily because of the particular crime they might be arrested for at a particular time, the tendency to go soft still generates support, as this story from The Crime Report indicates.

“An excerpt.

“The Georgia legislature, once noted for its tough-on-crime approach, voted last year to stop imprisoning certain non-violent offenders—particularly those involved in drugs—and divert them instead into cheaper, community-based rehabilitation programs.

“In Miami, prosecutors and police are a few years into a campaign aimed at reducing court backlogs by, for example, serving civil citations to plumbers whose trucks lacked a legally required sign bearing the name of their business—instead of charging them with criminal misdemeanors, the previous penalty.

“In New York State, the Close to Home project, launched in 2011, will place young  offenders under supervision in their home communities with access to mental health and other counseling, instead of shipping them off to juvenile facilities far from their families. 

“These examples illustrate a growing national trend towards decriminalization of offenses that once were routinely punished by imprisonment.  The trend reflects efforts to cut criminal justice costs and, at the same time, a re-evaluation of what constitutes appropriate punishment.

“Underlying this approach is the idea that prison cells should be reserved for dangerous criminals.

“The primary purpose of imprisonment should be safety, and separating us from people who would do us physical harm,” criminal defense lawyer Jim Felman of Tampa, FL, a member of the American Bar Association (ABA), said in an interview with The Crime Report.

Reclassifying Crimes

“The ABA is among the groups backing efforts to reclassify certain kinds of crime and to lessen some criminal sentences.

“In particular, the bar association has spotlighted how such changes might better balance the scales of justice for the poor who cannot afford adequate legal counsel, and who disproportionately fill the nation’s prisons.

“According to Pew Center Public Safety Performance Project director Adam Gelb, roughly half the states have redefined their sentencing standards over the last five years.

“Money has largely driven those initiatives. Free-falling government revenues have made it harder to justify the higher costs of incarcerating a wide array of non-violent people as opposed to dealing with them in other ways.

“Policymakers are recognizing that it’s not their job just to look tough on crime,” Gelb said. “It’s their job to produce a better public safety return, better results for taxpayers.”

“Gelb added that the re-thinking has spurred many legislators “to ask questions and make policy change that concentrates on using prison space for serious, chronic and violent offenders, and to shift lower-level offenders back into the community.”

New Technology Finding Illegal Guns

This is a great use of technology—once it’s perfected—by police, as reported by the New York Daily News.

An excerpt.

“Get ready for scan-and-frisk.

“The NYPD will soon deploy new technology allowing police to detect guns carried by criminals without using the typical pat-down procedure, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday.

“The department just received a machine that reads terahertz — the natural energy emitted by people and inanimate objects — and allows police to view concealed weapons from a distance.

“If something is obstructing the flow of that radiation, for example a weapon, the device will highlight that object,” Kelly said.

“A video image aired at a Police Foundation breakfast Wednesday showed an officer, clad in a New York Jets jersey and jeans, with the shape of a hidden gun clearly visible under his clothing when viewed through the device.

“The department will begin testing the high-tech device for use on the street. The device is small enough to be placed in a police vehicle or stationed at a street corner where gunplay has occurred in the past.”

Aquinas on Punishment

Punishment is a vital element in the development of sound criminal justice policies that protect the public and rehabilitate the criminal, but current evidence from the academy and the media indicate it’s an element not being addressed.

Using broken windows policing and three strikes sentencing to protect the public from criminals by arresting and incapacitating them in prison is sound public policy; yet the old ideas masquerading as new ideas that prisons do not work either in protecting the public or in rehabilitation is another attempt to relativize good and evil.

St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

“I answer that, Two things may be considered in sin: the guilty act, and the consequent stain. Now it is evident that in all actual sins, when the act of sin has ceased, the guilt remains; because the act of sin makes man deserving of punishment, in so far as he transgresses the order of Divine justice, to which he cannot return except he pay some sort of penal compensation, which restores him to the equality of justice; so that, according to the order of Divine justice, he who has been too indulgent to his will, by transgressing God’s commandments, suffers, either willingly or unwillingly, something contrary to what he would wish. This restoration of the equality of justice by penal compensation is also to be observed in injuries done to one’s fellow men. Consequently it is evident that when the sinful or injurious act has ceased there still remains the debt of punishment.

“But if we speak of the removal of sin as to the stain, it is evident that the stain of sin cannot be removed from the soul, without the soul being united to God, since it was through being separated from Him that it suffered the loss of its brightness, in which the stain consists, as stated above (Question 86, Article 1). Now man is united to God by his will. Wherefore the stain of sin cannot be removed from man, unless his will accept the order of Divine justice, that is to say, unless either of his own accord he take upon himself the punishment of his past sin, or bear patiently the punishment which God inflicts on him; and in both ways punishment avails for satisfaction. Now when punishment is satisfactory, it loses somewhat of the nature of punishment: for the nature of punishment is to be against the will; and although satisfactory punishment, absolutely speaking, is against the will, nevertheless in this particular case and for this particular purpose, it is voluntary. Consequently it is voluntary simply, but involuntary in a certain respect, as we have explained when speaking of the voluntary and the involuntary (6, 6). We must, therefore, say that, when the stain of sin has been removed, there may remain a debt of punishment, not indeed of punishment simply, but of satisfactory punishment.

Summa Theologica, I-II (87:6)

Attention on the Church

Good article from The Catholic Thing about the supposed irrelevancy of the Church.

An excerpt.

“For an institution many believe is declining and irrelevant, the Catholic Church sure gets a lot of attention. And advice. It’s remarkable how many people who have little use for Catholicism are quick to offer warnings when a new pope is about to be chosen. They may not much believe in absolutes, but they’re quite certain what the Church ought to do next – if it wants to survive.

“Of course, most of them suggest becoming like themselves, as if – Christ’s hard sayings having been liberalized away – people will rush out of the house on a Sunday morning to hear the same things from the pulpit that they could get over coffee reading the Sunday paper. It’s the old modern litany: equality, inclusiveness, tolerance, not judging, compassion, social justice, respecting different points of view.

“These are all good things, understood in the right way and context. But they are at most half of the story. Besides, the world already thinks it practices them far better than the old men in Rome, who persist in saying some things are not good for human life – like killing it in the womb. And who believe that restricting ourselves to the human horizon alone will inevitably lead to an inhumane humanism. We had multiple examples of that phenomenon in the last century, but don’t seem to be done with it yet.

“You don’t have to look very far, for instance, to see that inclusiveness and respect for different views don’t much count when it comes to Catholicism. Even basic civility goes out the window. Some of the things that have been said about Benedict XVI since he announced his resignation last week  – from his “Nazi past” to his “crimes against humanity” in the priestly abuse cases – would be thought “offensive” directed at any other religious leader.

“But in its way, it’s a tribute. The pope still matters and this pope in particular has made a special mark through his thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, and humility – all of which entered into his decision to resign. The world does not let such good deeds go unpunished. Still, one thinks of Mark Twain’s character who, tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, remarked:  “If it weren’t for the honor, I’d just as soon have walked.”

Pope Benedict on Vatican II

As a participant in the Council, his thoughts are very important, as reported by Vatican Information Services News.

An excerpt.

“Vatican City, 15 February 2013 (VIS) – Following are ample extracts from the Holy Father’s warm and friendly chat yesterday with the clergy of Rome, which was held in the Paul VI Hall.

“We went to the Council not just with joy, but enthusiastically. There was an incredible expectation. We hoped that everything would be renewed, that a new Pentecost, a new era in the Church, had truly arrived, … rediscovering the bond between the Church and the world’s best elements, to open humanity’s future, to begin real progress. We began to get to know one another … and it was an experience of the Church’s universality and of the Church’s concrete reality, which wasn’t limited to receiving orders from on high but of growing and advancing together, under the direction of the Successor of Peter naturally.” The questions put to the Council Fathers dealt with “the reform of the liturgy, … ecclesiology, … the Word of God, Revelation, … and, finally, ecumenism.”

“In retrospect, I think that it was very good to begin with the liturgy, showing God’s primacy, the primacy of adoration. … The Council spoke of God and this was its first act: speaking of God and opening everything to the people, opening the adoration of God to the entire holy people, in the common celebration of the liturgy of the Body and Blood of Christ. … The principles came later: comprehensibility, so as not to be locked in an unknown and unspoken language, and active participation. Unfortunately, sometimes these principles are misunderstood. Comprehensibility does not mean triviality because the great texts of the liturgy―even when they are, thanks be to God, in one’s mother tongue―are not easily understandable. Ongoing formation is necessary for Christians to grow and enter more deeply into the mystery so they might understand.”

“The second theme: the Church. … We wanted to say and to understand that the Church is not an organization, not just some structural, legal, or institutional thing―which it also is―but an organism, a living reality that enters into my soul and that I myself, with my very soul, as a believer, am a constitutive element of the Church as such. … The Church isn’t a structure. We ourselves, Christians together, we are the living Body of the Church. Of course, this is true in the sense that we, the true ‘we’ of believers, together with the ‘I’ of Christ, are the Church; each one of us is not ‘a we’ but a group that calls itself Church.”

“The first idea was to present the ecclesiology in a theological format, but continuing structurally, that is to say, alongside the succession of Peter, in its unique role, to better define the role of bishops and the episcopal body. In order to do this we found that the word ‘collegiality’ was very intensely debated, somewhat exaggeratedly I would say. But it was the word … to express that the bishops, together, are the continuation of the Twelve, of the group of Apostles. We said: only one bishop, the bishop of Rome, is the successor of the particular apostle, Peter … Thus the group of Bishops, the College, is the continuation of the Twelve and has its needs, its role, its rights, and its duties.”

“Another question in the ecclesiastical sphere was the definition of the concept of the ‘people of God’, which implies the continuity of the Testaments, the continuity of the history of God with the world, with humanity, and also implies the ‘Christological element’. Only through Christology are we converted into the People of God and thus two concepts are united. The council decided to create a Trinitarian structure to the ecclesiology: the People of God the Father, the Body of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. … The link between the People of God and the Body of Christ is, effectively, communion with Christ in the Eucharistic union. Thus we become the Body of Christ, that is, the relationship between the People of God and the Body of Christ creates a new reality: communion.”

“On the question regarding Revelation, the fulcrum was the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. … Certainly, what is important is that the Scriptures are the Word of God and the Church is subject to the Scriptures, obeys the Word of God, and is not above Scripture. Nevertheless, the Scriptures are only such because there is a living Church, its living subject. Without the living subject of the Church, Scripture is only a book open to different interpretations and gives no definitive clarity.” In this sense, “Pope Paul VI’s intervention was decisive,” with his proposal of the formula “nos omnis certitudo de veritatibus fidei potest sumi ex Sacra Scriptura”, that is, “the Church’s certainty on the faith is not only born of an isolated book, but needs the enlightened subject of the Church, which brings the Holy Spirit. Only thus can Scripture speak and from this springs all its authority.”

“And, finally, ecumenism. I don’t want to go into these problems now, but it was obvious that―especially after the ‘passion’ of Christians during the age of Nazism―that Christians could find unity, or could at least look for it, but it was also clear that only God can give unity. And we are still continuing along this path.”

“The second part of the Council was much broader. The theme, arising with great urgency, was today’s world, the modern age and the Church, and with it issues of the responsibility of the construction of this world, of society, responsibility for the future of this world and eschatological hope; Christian ethical responsibility … as well as religious freedom, progress, and relations with other religions. At that time, the entire Council, not just the United States, whose people are very concerned with religious freedom, really joined in the discussion … Latin America also joined in strongly, knowing the misery of the people of a Catholic continent and the responsibility of the faith for the situation of these persons. And thus Africa, Asia likewise saw the need for interreligious dialogue. … The great document ‘Gaudium et Spes’ analysed the problem between Christian eschatology and worldly progress, including the responsibility of tomorrow’s society and Christian responsibilities in the face of eternity, and also the renewal of Christian ethics. … The basis for dialogue is in difference, in diversity, in the faith of the uniqueness of Christ who is one, and it is not possible for a believer to think that religions are variations on the same theme. No. There is a reality of the living God who has spoken and who is one God, an incarnate God, therefore one word of God who is truly the Word of God. But there is also a religious experience, with a certain human light on creation, and therefore it is necessary and possible to enter into dialogue and so to open oneself to others and to open all to God peace, all His children, all His family.”

“I would like to add still a third point… the Council of the media. It was almost a Council itself and the world saw the Council through it. The ‘Council of the journalists’, of course was not carried out within the faith but within the categories of today’s media. That is to say, it was outside of the faith, with a different hermeneutic … a political hermeneutic. For the media, the Council was a political struggle, a power struggle between the Church’s different strands. … There was a triple problem: the Pope’s power transferred to the power of the bishops and to the power of all: popular sovereignty. The same thing happened with the liturgy. They were not interested in the liturgy as an act of faith but as something where things are made understandable, a type of communal activity. … These translations, the trivialization of the idea of the Council were virulent in the practice of applying liturgical reform; a vision of the Council outside of its proper interpretation, that of faith, was born.”

Harvard Windmill Chaser

With noble intentions, as had Don Quixote, a Harvard professor who doesn’t understand that the broken windows policing and three strikes sentencing which led to very full prisons also led to the dramatic drop in crime over the same period, is conducting research in the mistaken belief that it is social and family conditions that cause crime and that prisons should be rarely used.

And, sexual predators are often charming, it is part of their method of attracting victims, called “grooming”.

“An excerpt from the Harvard Magazine article.

“When Jerry enters the pizza place next to Boston’s Government Center, he shakes Bruce Western’s hand heartily. Jerry, who has served 25 years for armed robbery and aggravated rape, was released two months ago. Western is studying what happens to prisoners after their release and has come to interview Jerry about his experience.

“After ordering them coffees, Western, a sociology professor and faculty chair of the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, turns on his tape recorder. “Today is the sixth of November,” he says, setting the recorder down on the table. “My ex-wife’s birthday,” Jerry (not his real name) notes wryly. Western reads out the four-digit number that identifies Jerry for the purposes of the study. “I should play that number in the lottery tonight,” Jerry says.

“Jerry is quick with a joke, charismatic and likable—not what comes to mind when one hears “convicted rapist.” For Western, this has been one of the study’s chief lessons. Although he is one of the foremost experts on incarceration in America, in the past he primarily studied prisoners through datasets and equations. Meeting his subjects in person put a human face on the statistics and dashed preconceived notions in the process.

“Western has come to believe that just as offenders’ crimes carry a cost to society, so too does the shortage of social supports and rehabilitative services for offenders. A crime-control strategy of locking up more people, and keeping them locked up longer, isn’t working, he says. He is determined to help the American public understand how crime is shaped by poverty, addiction, and histories of family violence, in an effort to promote a more humane—and more effective—prison policy.

“Luck, Not a Plan”

“More than 2.2 million Americans are incarcerated. This population is dynamic: hundreds of thousands of people (mostly men) are released from U.S. prisons each year to try to make a go of it in a world where they have failed before—with the added disadvantage of a prison record. More than two-thirds will be rearrested within three years; half will go back in prison.

“Those released from prison are, as a group, little studied, partly because maintaining contact with them is so difficult. The men tend to be “very loosely attached to families and jobs,” Western explains. Prison time strains relationships with partners and children, and the men often live separately after their release. They may move frequently, sleeping on the couches of friends and relatives or even becoming homeless as difficulty in finding employment begets financial trouble.

“Tracking this group, though complicated, is essential to Western’s goal of understanding what challenges prisoners encounter in reintegrating into communities. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, he is tracking a sample of inmates released from the Massachusetts prison system who return to Boston-area addresses during the course of a year. The researchers collect friends’ and relatives’ information (to maintain contact when, for example, a subject’s phone is disconnected for nonpayment) and work with community street-workers and the Boston police, who may have information on the former prisoners’ whereabouts. Ultimately, Western hopes to learn what services might most effectively help the formerly incarcerated lead productive lives and what alternatives to prison might better improve public safety.”

Pope Benedict’s Resignation, Part II

Another superb article about it from Reverend George Rutler.

An excerpt.

“What God knows is not necessarily what God wills.  Each pope is guaranteed the protection of the Holy Spirit from fallible definitions of faith and morals, but to suppose that each pope is there because God wants him there, including the unworthy successors of Peter, comes close to the unforgivable blasphemy against the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.  Twenty year old Benedict IX was at least as nightmarish as his successor Gregory VI who usually is counted with his predecessor among the popes who relinquished their office. There are times, though, when the hand of God is not manhandled, and that, for instance, is why Cardinal Cooke once told me that he had never been so conscious of the presence of the Holy Spirit as he was in the Conclave that elected John Paul II.  It may also  be that the sudden death of John Paul I, as stunning as recent events in the Vatican, was not untimely if it was part of a higher plan.

“Petrine office is not indelible like Holy Orders, and in 1415 Gregory XII nobly and efficiently made his resignation a kind of security for healing the Western Schism.  Dante  was so frustrated by what he considered dereliction of duty, that he put the abdicated Celestine V into the Inferno but that was his own Commedia, when the Church, not in fancy but in fact, knew he is in Heaven.  In 2009 photographs were widely circulated showing Benedict XVI leaving his pallium at Celestine’s tomb, and many commentators then thought that this was more than a gesture of incidental piety.

“As with the Spiritual Franciscans as a whole, almost in tandem with the earlier Montanists, Celestine V proved the utter impracticality of dovelike innocence without serpentine astuteness, and Boniface VIII was as right as was John XXII in condemning these “Fraticelli.”  But Boniface also proved the desperate shortcoming of cleverness without innocence.  Benedict XVI’s serene retreat to pray will not be like the last months of Pope Celestine who might nearly qualify as a martyr for the terrible treatment he endured for ten months until death when immured in the walls of the Fumone castle in Campagna. Celestine was confined to an unsanitary cell hardly large enough for a bed and an altar.  We see in this the contempt that venal souls have for the motives of the humble, and Celestine was nothing if not humble. The role of Boniface in Celestine’s degradation has often been sanitized, but, as John Henry Newman wrote in the “Historical Sketches: “glosses are put upon memorable acts, because they are thought not edifying, whereas of all scandals such omissions, such glosses, are the greatest.”  A decree of Boniface, making hay of the misfortunes of his saintly predecessor, spelled out for the first time the canonical case for papal renunciation:

“Pope Celestine V, Our predecessor, whilst still presiding over the government of the aforesaid Church, wishing to cut off all the matter for hesitation on the subject, having deliberated with his brethren, the Cardinals of the Roman Church, of whom We were one, with the concordant counsel and assent of Us and of them all, by Apostolic authority established and decreed, that the Roman Pontiff may freely resign. We, therefore, lest it should happen that in course of time this enactment should fall into oblivion, and the aforesaid doubt should revive the discussion, have placed it among other constitutions ad perpetuam rei memoriam by the advice of our brethren.

“Benedict XVI certainly has known all this, for perhaps not since the Lambertini pope Benedict XIV has there been a pope of such mental acuity and historical erudition, nor probably has any pope since Gregory I, in his writings and witness, matched the magisterial eloquence and liturgical sensibility of this pope of Bavaria. The verdict of centuries from now will affirm the spiritual electricity of his Regensburg lecture, and how he spoke to the French academics in 2010, and, if words be immortal, his undying words in Westminster Hall.  His general audiences regularly outnumbered those of his beloved predecessor and those accustomed to spectacle actually began to listen to the crystalline reasoning of what he said. Before he became pope,  any form critic could detect his hand in Vatican documents when turgid prose suddenly broke into clarity. His first rate mind did not indulge the tendency of lesser minds to obscure what is profound and to think that what is obscure is perforce profound.

“If he was expected to be a caretaker pope, he took care very well, proving himself unexpectedly radical in his reform of reform, which is more difficult than reform itself, for it restores the form that reformers forgot. So we had the renewal of liturgical integrity in an ecology of beauty,  streamlining of the Curia, greater attention to episcopal appointments, the overdue beatification of Newman with all its portents for theological science,  the Anglican Ordinariate which may be less significant for what it becomes than for the fact that it exists at all, and progress with the Eastern churches.  His plans, like all “the best laid schemes of mice and men” were not completely realized.  Not all that Benedict called “filth” was removed, and we can be sure that a  media eager to affect being scandalized, will point out among those entering the Conclave, those who bring with them the shadows of what Benedict tried to dispel. But he continues to dignify in charity even those who may not understand that “dignitas.”  He announced his renunciation of office in Latin, and by so doing indicated his hope that even if some of those listening may have mingled astonishment with incomprehension, his successor will be able to speak the official language of the Church he leads and the city he governs.”