Reconciliation, punishment, and fraternal correction

Abstract

This article asks how we can interpret the concern for the healing of the individual, his reconciliation with the community, and the  community’s coresponsibility for the ongoing conversion of its members which find paradoxical expression in the punishment codes  of medieval and early modern religious life. It asks if and how, in the radically different cultures of modernity, and in view of the  Church’s sexual abuse crisis, the tradition of fraternal correction and mutual responsibility might find useful contemporary expression.