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Children’s Court Judge: Working together to choose life
Even if Christ, God or the Church are never named, my way of exercising this role of Children’s Court Judge is probably the result of an experience that has made a profound impact on my existence. I believe in the young people’s future, I wish to help them to ‘choose life’ and to arouse in them the desire to live, for often the children I meet no longer believe in life. As a religious of the Sacred Heart, I would like to show them how Christ’s love enters into their personal growth.
Seizing every spark of life
A human being is a human being, even if the one before me gives no visible or audible sign of anything but failure, violence, apparent apathy, refusal to relate, death-wish…This is a person loved by God, created to praise, respect and serve God. People usually arrive over-stressed, haunted with the stereotype of the judge who ‘kidnaps children’, or is portrayed in other ways arousing fear, mistrust or hostility. And so the first steps in the relationship are all-important. So that everyone will know where they stand, I speak directly to each person, and give them the rules of the game, so that they can see that the judge is equally bound by these rules. During the judicial proceedings I do not follow a programme, but a ‘way forward together’, which, like the Spiritual Exercises, cannot be known in advance. This way is marked out, in one hearing after another, in a constant interaction between the judge and the young person, the judge and the parents, the judge and the school authorities. I try to seize every spark of life that appears, drawing from prayer my power to listen and be of service. The judge is a lone figure, and like any power, this power involves risk. I do sometimes express my anger, but as I too experience God’s mercy, it gives me another perspective.
A warm empathy that encourages openness about impulses and feelings
I conduct the individual interviews in stages: first I see the child, of whatever age, then the child with his or her parents, then, the child with parents and the educational authorities. It often happens that the space opened up in this way for plain speaking gives them the green light to bring everything out: the incest or violence they have suffered, broken relationships, death-wish, debts or eviction. It all hits me full in the face, so that I’m alternately deeply moved, shattered, angry. Little by little, I allow the young people or adults to name their experience, to distance themselves, to classify events in order of importance. To help them to get their bearings, to say “I like this, I don’t like that’, ‘because… I want this, it appeals to me…’. When there is a certain warm empathy, drawn from contemplation of the Heart of Christ, things happen in an interview, as long as the Spirit is allowed to come sweeping in!
Helping to make real decisions
The young people or adults I see are hovering on the edge of action, they make decisions on an impulse, serious decisions that have consequences for their whole lives. I want to help them to make decisions that really are decisions, to identify the constraints weighing on their choice, their fears, to allow them to use their intelligence to the full, weigh the pros and cons, and identify the people to ask for advice. I invite them to take their time, and to see whether this decision leaves them at peace. This role makes sense because it offers a length of time, and specific means. That’s what bears me up and motivates me, even if the result does not belong to me, for the young people are also active in bringing about their own protection. Finally, when the accompaniment comes to an end, I have to agree to stand back and hand over to others. I won’t see the fruit of it for a long time. My prayer is not always joyful, and I’m staggered by certain situations … But it is Another who has taken charge of the world’s salvation: life springs from Him, and that conviction sets me free.
This article appeared in “Vie Chrétienne”.
Claire Castaing rscj
Province of France
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