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Initiative on Restorative Justice and Healing panel

A theoretical and practical approach to harm

Initiative on Restorative Justice and Healing

Harm and Healing

The Initiative on Restorative Justice and Healing (IRJH) was launched in 2021 to teach law students, and the broader legal community, how to utilize restorative justice practices within our courts and communities to facilitate healing, build bridges and bring about a more just and inclusive society.

Grounded in the Catholic intellectual tradition and aligned with St. Thomas Law’s social justice mission, the IRJH is committed to educating law students and the legal community about restorative justice and providing them with tools they can use as an alternative or complement to traditional punitive systems.

What Is Restorative Justice?

Restorative justice is a worldwide movement that seeks to respond to harm in a way that fosters accountability and healing by inviting practitioners to enter the wound of another by accompanying them as they tell their stories.

tablet with events on it Mlk racial justice event speaker

Responding to a growing demand

Education and Outreach

The IRJH offers a course on Restorative Justice, Law and Healing for upper-level students at St. Thomas Law and facilitates a university-wide working group on restorative practices for faculty, staff and students. We also maintain partnerships in the community and in Catholic dioceses throughout the United States.

Education and Outreach

Making connections

Events and Programming

The IRJH offers a variety of programming, including conferences, colloquia and webinars on restorative justice and restorative practices. These programs are most often co-sponsored with partners who bring expertise in this area and varying perspectives to each event.

Events and Programming

News from the IRJH

 Trying to Make Sense out of the Senseless: A Conversation with Fr. Daniel Griffith

Riccardo Benotti, Desk Chief & Journalist, Italian Bishops’ Conference interviewed Fr. Daniel Griffith on January 27, 2026 regarding Griffith’s statement about the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and recent events in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. In your statement, you spoke of the “grief and trauma” affecting the entire Twin Cities community. How do you pastorally interpret the death of Alex Pretti in this climate of fear and dismay?  As a pastor, I have heard from a number of parishioners after Mass and via email and text messages that they are really struggling – they were struggling after the death of Renee Good and now even more after Alex Pretti’s death – it is overwhelming for folks in the Twin Cities. People feel helpless – they don’t know what they can do. We have provided opportunities for prayer, special Masses, frequent communications, and opportunities for dialogue. The challenge in the Twin Cities is that we have experienced so much grief in the last several months – the killing of the Hortman’s, the Catholic school shooting at Annunciation and now these two killings – all violent deaths. Catholics and others are feeling disoriented and experiencing collective trauma as […]

  • The Dignity of the Human Person and the Scourge of Utilitarianism

    The dignity of the human person can rightly be traced to the Catholic intellectual tradition and has long provided a firm foundation for human rights and the concept of human and collective flourishing. Along with the common good, the dignity of the human person is a meta principle of Catholic social teaching (CST) and works along with the other CST principles to foster a more just and humane social order. The dignity of the human person asserts that all human persons are made in the image and likeness of God and thus have an inherent and inviolable dignity which attends human nature. To transgress this dignity in action, law or policy is an offense against justice and the common good. Others have arrived at the truth of human dignity from a more secular and non-theistic foundation – for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized human dignity as a foundation for the human rights expressed in the international charter. Utilitarianism is a product of the Enlightenment and was born of the thought of the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Utilitarianism asserts that in social policy and law it is necessary in all cases to maximize pleasure and minimize pain – […]

  • The Deep Harm of Polarization and What We Can Do About It

    St. John, in his gospel, presents the last supper discourses of Jesus – these discourses unfold over many chapters of the gospel and represent the final words of Jesus to his disciples before he goes to the cross. One of the most salient parts of these discourses is Jesus’s high priestly prayer to the Father where he prays – “that they may all be one, as you Father are in me and I in you.” (John 17:21). Jesus knows that division is a consequence of sin and will visit the nascent Christian community and indeed the Catholic Church throughout her history. The gifts of the Spirit and Eucharist are gifts of unity – to make us more united in faith and charity and more united as members of the body of Christ. Against this important biblical and theological backdrop, Americans, Christians, and Catholics live in a highly polarized age. As one Catholic told me recently, our divisions as Catholics map very closely to the divisions and polarization which afflict American life, politics, and culture. But Jesus says to his followers in Matthew 20:26, “it shall not be so among you” – in other words, Christian disciples must overcome divisions and […]

  • Toward Better Days: Overcoming Polarization in Church and Society

    Keynote speaker: Fr. Aaron Wessman, G.H.M. author of The Church’s Mission in a Polarized World (New City Press) Overcoming Polarization in the Church: Moderator: Ellen Koneck, Executive Director of Commonweal Monique Maddox, CEO Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation Susan Mulheron, Chancellor for Canonical Affairs, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis Fr. Aaron Wessman, Glenmary Home Missioners James Richter, M.D., Initiative on Restorative Justice & Healing Advisory Board Overcoming Polarization in Society: Moderator: Fr. Daniel Griffith, Founding Director, Initiative on Restorative Justice and Healing at University of St Thomas School of Law Panelists: Sheryl Wilson, VP for Culture and Belonging, Bethel College, Kansas Hank Shea, Senior Distinguished Fellow, University of St. Thomas School of Law Amelia Uelman, Director for Mission and Ministry, Georgetown Law School Kimberly Vrudny, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Theology, University of St. Thomas Attendees are invited to the reception following the program. The link to the live broadcast of this program is: https://stthomas.zoom.us/j/99712806143 and the recording will be available on the IRJH playlist the following week. #irjh #restorativejustice #polarization

  • Synodality, Restorative Justice, and Environmental Stewardship

    Last month, I attended a national ecclesial gathering which brought together lay leaders, religious, scholars, bishops, and priests to delve more deeply into Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si and its attendant call to ecological conversion and ecological stewardship. Released in 2015, this groundbreaking document was promulgated ahead of the Paris Climate Summit in an effort to galvanize global support toward collective action in sustaining our planet and its fragile environment. This past October, near the beginning of the Synod on Synodality in Rome, Pope Francis promulgated Laudate Deum, which repeated the urgent warning from eight years ago that our planet’s habitability is in danger and thus requires a response that is intentional, integral, and sustained. Below, I offer some key takeaways from this informative gathering. I wish to also offer a few words about Laudato Si and the witness of our modern popes – the consistency of which, both in the area of Catholic social teaching and environmental stewardship, has been compelling. I come away from this gathering inspired to do more as a pastor and professor in response to climate change and its attendant pernicious effects. In addition to this blog piece, an upcoming episode of The Basilica of […]

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Locked Out video

Past IRJH Events

Locked Out: Concepts of Criminality & Housing Security

This Catholic Charities Social Justice Assembly series program asks the questions, "What come to mind when you hear the word criminal?" "How does that impact your understanding of crime?" Watch this group of local experts discuss how criminality impacts housing insecurity and how we might shift the conversation.

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Meet Our Leadership

The Initiative on Restorative Justice and Healing was launched at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in 2021.

fr. daniel griffith

Fr. Daniel Griffith

Founding Director

Fr. Griffith serves as the Wenger Family Faculty Fellow of Law. He teaches Catholic Thought, Law and Policy; Jurisprudence; and Restorative Justice, Law and Healing.

Fr. Daniel Griffith
Julie Craven

Julie Craven

Associate Director

Julie Craven is a former corporate executive. In addition to the IRJH, she supports the restorative justice work in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Julie Craven
Hank Shea

Hank Shea

Fellow

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Hank Shea is a law professor and a fellow in the Holloran Center. He also teaches at the University of Arizona College of Law.

Hank Shea
Amy Levad

Amy Levad

Fellow

Amy Levad is an associate professor of theology at St. Thomas. Her work draws upon sacramental and liturgical ethics to argue for social justice and criminal justice reform.

Amy Levad

Give to the IRJH

Gifts to the IRJH help to address a growing demand for expertise and education in restorative practices—in communities and for future lawyers and the broader legal community, as they learn how to utilize restorative justice practices within our courts and communities to facilitate healing, build bridges and bring about a more just and inclusive society