It is as though I am back in my college years, spending my semester abroad. This fall I am living in the beautiful city of Leuven, Belgium, a city of about 100,000 people and located about twenty miles outside of Brussels. I am teaching at the Catholic University of Leuven Law School’s Criminology Institute where there is a vibrant and well-known restorative justice department. A group of professors here, led by highly respected Dr. Ivo Aertsen, as well as many Ph.D. students and researchers, are examining and writing about the impact of restorative justice programs in many different countries and cultures.

The university was founded in 1425, making it the oldest Catholic university in the world. There are 40,000 students here (and I think they all ride bicycles). I also have the privilege of living in what is called the Groot Beginjnof (or for us French speakers “the Grand Beguinage.”) In about 1325, groups of women from the Low Countries decided to create their own religious communities and build small towns in which they lived. They were strong, independent women who did not want to attach themselves to religious orders (and wanted to maintain control over their personal finances rather than give them to the Catholic Church).