Description of Activity
Title:From Natural Law to Natural Love: The example of relational and restorative practices in schools
Abstract:
The critical function of RRP is to build and restore relationships through fair process based on engagement (involving individuals in decisions), explanation (of reasoning behind decisions) and expectation clarity (ensuring that everyone understands both decisions and future expectations).
This presentation examines RRP and Fair Process through the lens of forgiveness arguing that it both supports and extends the application of Catholic Social Thought (CST). It supports an approach grounded in subsidiarity, promoting both social solidarity and the dignity of every individual as foundational to their natural rights. It also extends and renews CST through an exploration of the phenomenology of individuation and an exploration of haecceity taking us from the metaphysically cold legalism of natural law to human relationships grounded in natural love.
Building on the work of Catholic Educationalists, Richard Lane and Albert Price (the first Head of the Catholic Education Service) we explore mechanisms for the pupils’ rights becoming the schools’ values where equality and individuality, unity and diversity, justice and affirmation are reconciled and embodied. From Natural Law to Natural Love: The Example of Relational & Restorative Practices (RRP) in Schools.
In Catholic teaching these values are absolute, universal, inalienable and inviolable and is a wholeness affirmed through Baptism. Discrimination and unfair process denies this wholeness of the pupil, and their future.
To challenge discrimination there needs to be the management of rights and values in schools and we argue for the catholicity of RRP when rights and values come into conflict, to provide a space of possibility for reconciling each to the other, providing pupils’ access and choice and freedom from discrimination.
| Period | 2 Sept 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Catholic Social Teaching on the Streets : Fr Charles Plater SJ 150th Anniversary Conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Oxford, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | National |