CTU graduate earns first Certificate in Reconciliation and Restorative Justice
In May, Maura Rocks earned her Master of Divinity at Catholic Theological Union (CTU). But there was one more achievement that gave the degree the spiritual orientation for ministry she had discerned.
Maura became the first ever graduate with the Certificate in Reconciliation and Restorative Justice. This is the signature program offered by the Schreiter Institute for Precious Blood Spirituality. It requires four classroom courses — Reconciliation: A Praxis of Salvation, Praxis for Cross-Cultural Transformation, God and the Mystery of Human Suffering, and Reconciling Narratives — and two semesters of ministry practicum. All of this focuses on the work of accompaniment, reconciliation, compassionate encounter, and seeking God’s justice through interpersonal and social healing.
The Robert J. Schreiter Institute for Precious Blood Spirituality was founded in 2022. It was a joint venture between the Precious Blood Spirituality Institute (PBSI) and CTU with the intention of encouraging the development of a practical theology of Precious Blood Spirituality in an academic setting while also educating a new generation of ministers in key themes like compassionate presence, accompaniment, reconciliation, and social healing. The certificate program was developed by Director Kevin Considine, with the guidance and blessing of PBSI and approved by all governing bodies of CTU. It now is an accredited program in its third year of operation. The interest among students has increased every year, and it currently has six students enrolled.
Maura was already a student at CTU when she learned about the certificate program from her cohort in Pathways@CTU, a living-learning community for young adults who are passionate about co-creating the Church of tomorrow. The certificate was a new program that focused on exactly where Maura was discerning in her call to ministry: to accompany the most vulnerable in the work of justice and social healing.
She first was introduced to restorative justice while a full-time theology teacher and justice minister with Christ the King Jesuit College Prep on the West Side of Chicago. As she transitioned to life at CTU, she appreciated how Precious Blood spirituality offered Scriptural foundations for restorative justice and showed that both reconciliation and accompaniment were a work of the Church that was always part of Jesus’ ministry.
Maura honed what she learned in the classroom through her practicum work with integral ecology and food justice at an organization called Just Roots and later in her work as a chaplain-intern completing one unit of clinical pastoral education at the level-one trauma center at the University of Chicago Medical Center. A level-one trauma center receives emergency patients in the most dire straits. At this location, this often means patients with gunshot wounds and other life-threatening bodily harm.
Two other community partners that were essential in Maura’s formation were the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation and Project F.I.R.E. at Firebird Community Arts. The former is a well-known ministry in Chicago, and the latter is a secular organization that focuses on trauma healing with young people through glassblowing.
Maura recently returned from pilgrimage with her husband on the Camino de Santiago. She now begins full-time ministry as a chaplain resident at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She will be serving patients and families alongside the amazing staff there while completing her final three units of clinical pastoral education in preparation for board certification.
“I’m excited to put my amazing education to work as I accompany folks from all over our great city,” she says.