From the Archives: "Reconciliation for the Victims”

Each month, our blog features articles from the archives of Liturgy. Our goal is to share the wisdom from decades past so that we might celebrate the work and insights of these excellent ministers and scholars.

Catherine Vincie

In 1991, Litrurgy published an article by Catherine Vincie entitled, “Reconciliation for the Victim.” Asking deep questions about the meaning of rites of reconciliation between sinner and the sinned against, Vincie uses the story of the daughter of Jephthah (Judges 11:29–40) to examine new directions for healing. Having made a “bargain” with the Lord to offer up “whoever comes forth from my house to meet me” if he defeats the Ammonite foes, Jephthah is faced with his beloved daughter who runs to greet him. He has vowed to kill her. She asks for two months time with her women friends which, in Vincie’s words, she uses to “sort through the horrors of what had transpired and of what lay ahead.” Reconciliation, in other words, is not necessarily directed at the sinner but guided by the community of solidarity on behalf of the victim. 

Vincie offers three challenges to the church’s rites: 1) name the victim/s; 2) place the victim in the center (rather than the sinner); and 3) open the leadership role for rites of reconciliation beyond that of the ordained.

Selected Quotes from

“reconciliation for the victim”

“In the church’s ritual celebration of confession. . . the means are provided for those who have sinned to come forward and name their brokenness, their need for forgiveness, their desire for wholeness and for reconciliation. The larger church in its turn proclaims God’s message of forgiveness and healing and utters its own word of reconciliation. At its best, confession is a means for true conversion, metanoia, an orienting of one’s whole life toward God. 

But this seems too easy somehow. Our new-found critical vision has made us uncomfortable with claims that suggest that the church is already doing it all and doing it well. Liturgical scholars, pastors and catechists, among others, have raised new questions about almost every aspect of the church’s ministry of reconciliation. Has our vision of sin been too narrow? Is sin only about an individual’s ethical choices? What of social sin? Is sin the only reality that prompts the need for reconciliation?”

~ ~ ~

“When we speak about sin and forgiveness, the focus is usually on the act of sinning and the act of forgiveness. Such an approach emphasizes personal responsibility and ethical choices. Confession becomes a matter of admitting one’s complicity in evil, acceptance of guilt, acknowledgment of sorrow and resolve to mend one’s ways. Forgiveness involves a hearing of faults, an acceptance of the person as one who is responsible for her or his actions toward sin and toward grace and the offering of forgiveness in the name of God and the community. . . 

The voices from the ‘underside of history’ suggest that there is a profound need for another kind of reconciliation as well, one that involves the experience of being sinned against.”

~ ~ ~

Catherine Vincie, RSHM, is professor of sacramental and liturgical theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri, and past president of the North American Academy of Liturgy. She has published numerous articles on topics including initiation, Eucharist, liturgy and justice, preaching, and as a practicing musician, the role of the arts in liturgical celebration. She is the author of Celebrating Divine Mystery: A Primer in Liturgical Theology (Liturgical Press).

If you would like access to this article, please follow this link:

Catherine Vincie, “Reconciliation for the Victim,” Liturgy 9, no. 4 (1991): 34–41.