In his recent Ethika Politika essay, Brandon McGinley argued that, in order to properly respond to the narrative of violence and oppression against LGBT people, we need to:

tell a story of a society that has had good and evil elements—that takes seriously both the value of tradition and the experiences of people like Saeed Jones. Our task is to demonstrate that the good can be conserved while the evil is excised.

The formation of this sort of reconciliation narrative in response to systemic dehumanization and systematic oppression is the province and central task of restorative justice, which, though implemented most famously in South Africa following Apartheid, has also been put to the test in a number of post-genocide and post-dictatorship societies. Exploring the practices of political reconciliation in the context of LGBT issues, then, is more than just an academic exercise: it should show us all of the tasks and options in front of us.

We can reliably turn to Daniel Philpott, recently-appointed Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame, for an explanation of the practices of political reconciliation. In his essay "Reconciliation: a Catholic Ethic for Peacebuilding in the Political Order" in the collection Peacebuilding: Catholic Theology, Ethics, and Practice, Philpott lays a rather more comprehensive perspective than can be here related (not least with respect to the theology involved).

I therefore take on a more modest task: relating the 6 practices that Philpott describes as characteristic of a political reconciliation movement, and suggesting what they might look like if implemented by American Catholics with respect to LGBT issues.

1. Acknowledgement: the recognition of the suffering of victims as well as the ways in which violence inflicted against them was legitimized or directly perpetrated by existing political systems. Practically speaking, acknowledgment means familiarizing ourselves with the feelings and dynamics of oppression and alienation experienced by the oppressed group, regardless of whether the trauma was perpetrated by the police in the name of the state, by religious authorities in the name of moral righteousness, or by third parties that nonetheless drew no attention or condemnation from the legitimate authorities.

Some of these eventsfor example, the systematic targeting of the LGBT community that led directly to the Stonewall Riots of 1969resonate throughout the community even today; we cannot hope to understand this historically marginalized community if we are ignorant of these sorts of experiences and how even modern forms of personal and political expression (for example, pride parades) are shaped by them.

As helpful as it may be to have an understanding of events that have had an irreversible impact on the LGBT community as a whole and to communicate generally that Catholics are ready to confront these experiences, widespread social awareness is only the foundation of acknowledgment. Philpott identifies the chief virtue of acknowledgement as personalism: rather than simply reducing victims to statistics within a narrative, the manifestations of acknowledgment that Philpott presents as most ideal involves offering comprehensive personal, emotional, and psychological support to victims.

Most of us are not equipped to offer comprehensive psychological support to victims of trauma, but responding to the anger of LGBT activists against advocates of the Catholic understanding of marriage (which I have experienced both online and in person) with patience and a desire to understand will ultimately be far more effective than the common response of claiming to be calm and rational when our opponents are emotional. This latter reaction is of more comfort to us than to them; it suggests that there are obstacles to understanding, but takes no steps to remove them.

2. Reparations: the provision of material compensationeither by the government or by the perpetratorsto the victims of oppression, possibly in the form of economic, psychological, or medical aid. Philpott identifies this dimension of reconciliation with the Christian idea of penance, which involves the attempt to repair the harm caused by sin. Although the reparations are often insufficient (particularly in cases of genocide) to cover the harm done, they can also, according to Philpott, operate as a concrete sign of acknowledgment and of society’s desire that the oppressed group be restored to full citizenship and participation in society.

Reparations seems to find their clearest application here with respect to providing compensation to the victims of homophobic violence, but we cannot forget the particular vulnerability of teenagers coming to terms with their sexuality, who face the very real possibility of rejection by parents, peers, and pastors. The young people who are disowned by their families for no reason other than being self-aware enough to recognize certain patterns in the sexual attractions they experience deserve the support of conscientious Christians, not least because so many of them end up homeless. Furthermore, effort could be made to reach out to those who have lost jobs or been denied employment—especially by Catholic institutions—for no reason other than their sexual orientation.

As an aside: Philpott makes a further note that reparations, without the context of acknowledgment and apology, may seem like nothing more than “blood money,” and it is worth considering that the sort of quiet and confidential settlements that the Church has sometimes accepted with respect to the sex abuse crisis might have thus failed to present the Church as truly penitent with respect to its role in enabling the sexual abuse of children.

3. Punishment: Philpott regards punishment specifically within an ethic of political reconciliation as having a two-fold purpose: to encourage and provide a means for condemned individuals to re-enter society and to promote an idea of justice that is capable of restoring social harmony and overcoming the “standing victory” of injustice.

The application of the practice is probably least clear here. It is easy (though perhaps not justified) to take for granted that the criminal justice system will identify and punish those who have committed crimes, but aside from redoubling our efforts in enforcing existing laws against violent crime, especially that which was motivated by hatred, what penance might be imposed on people, such that there is a path to re-integration for offenders whose deeds are not illegal? It seems that these cases would be covered in the payment of some form of reparations and through the next practice Philpott identifies: apology.

4. Apology: in order to explain apology, Philpott refers to the document Memory and Reconciliation, authored by the International Theological Commission. The document distinguishes between two dimensions of sin that allow for two separate dimensions of apology. The first dimensionthe subjectiverefers to the individual’s decision to commit the crime, and only the perpetrator himself can offer a corresponding apology. The other dimension is the objective dimensionthe ongoing consequences of the act, for which the Church (or any collective body), through its legitimate leaders, can apologize.

The subjective dimension is not to be ignored, but its application is fairly obvious: apologies from those responsible for the various forms of rejection, alienation, and oppression (both intentional and unintentional) experienced by LGBT people, as often as they present sincere apologies, can have a significant impact.

For the objective dimension of apology, the words, deeds, and general attitude of Pope Francis are a good start, but they are not sufficient even with respect to the hierarchy, much less the laity. In speaking for the collective, the leader does not speak for every individual, and without voices of assent from the ranks, the leader’s words lose their legitimacy and therefore their impact. The voices of the Christian left, furthermore, regardless of whether they are substantially in dissent, are not sufficient. In order to overcome the perception of homophobia, it will be necessary for the religious right to credibly present its apology for the history of violence and oppression experienced by individuals and groups on account of their sexual orientation, regardless of whether or not any given act of violence occurred through the direct acts or complicity of the Church.

5. Forgiveness: Philpott calls forgiveness “the most rare, surprising, controversial, striking, and potentially transformative” practice of political reconciliation, and defines it as “an act of love through which victims of wrongdoing renounce their justified anger and resentment against their perpetrator along with all claims that the wrongdoers owe them something for their deed.”

As much as I would like to let that stand as it is, some further commentary may be necessary. No matter how much effort we put into all of these other activities, we can only hope and pray that God may move hearts to forgiveness. At no point in the enactment of any of these practices will we have earned the forgiveness of anyone.  When, or, less presumptively, if it comes, we accept it with gratitude. I emphasize this because it is when forgiveness happens that we will have fully opened the door for an honest conversation about marriage, but we can’t even hope to be sincerely forgiven unless we allow ourselves to be motivated more by a genuine desire to repent for our sins and heal the still-open wounds than by the hope of being heard on another issue.

6: Socially Just Institutions: the final practice, which Philpott discusses first but which I have left to last not least because it is the most confusing and political, is the construction of socially just institutions. This practice principally takes the form of laws (either civil or within particular institutions) whose primary function is to end the conflict, but which also preclude the reiteration of the oppression and ensure that the oppressed groups and individuals are able to participate as full citizens.

In the context of world politics, this has included amnesties, the demobilization of armed forces, and the construction of new constitutions that give fair representation to oppressed ethnicities, but these measures seem to have little applicability here. Rather, the most common and compelling arguments we’re likely to encounter in America revolve around the institution of nondiscrimination clauses and same-sex marriage as necessary for our society to credibly denounce its history of crimes targeted against LGBT individuals and make them full citizens in our society.

Many Catholic institutions are afraid that including a non-discrimination clause would lead to lawsuits and rulings that force these institutions to provide marriage benefits to same-sex couples, no matter how explicitly rooted in and therefore limited by the Catholic tradition such clauses may have been. Nonetheless, if we accept the premise (advanced, if nowhere else, in What is Marriage?), that marriage and the acceptance of LGBT people are not the same issue, it seems only appropriate that we should put this belief into action in our employment policies.

Nondiscrimination clauses should be implemented as soon as we are reasonably confident that they will be sensibly interpreted, but the civil institution of same-sex marriage must be resisted precisely because it is ultimately socially unjust. To definitively and deliberately accept the redefinition of marriage (which has thus far been enabled by no-fault divorce) is to leave unprotected the crucial social role of marriage and family in society. We must draw this line, but in order for the line to have moral credibility, we must make incontrovertible in other ways our rejection of homophobia.