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Emily Anderson

Scott Harris

UNIV 392

Paper 4

Joan’s Experience of Justice

Justice, it seems, is something many people seem to talk about or reference when

discussing a wide range of topics. It has become a buzzword, where people define certain

acts as an act of justice or confuse how something is “just” instead of how something is

“fair” in the eyes of the law. Some people take justice to mean different things- however,

what constitutes justice for some does not necessarily constitute justice for all. Justice, is

action based on experience and reflection. How one person is able to view justice is based

distinctly on one’s life experience and perspective. As a wide-reaching concept, justice

cannot be fully understood unless one continues to experience life outside of one’s own

perspectives and then engage in thoughtful reflection and take action- thus successfully

utilizing the Ignatian paradigm.

In the film The Passion of Joan of Arc, the idea of justice is incredibly prominent. On

stand by the Catholic Church for heresy, Joan is tortured to admit that she has greatly

sinned and beg for forgiveness from the Church. However, she understands from her life

and the people that she has fought for that she is no heretic- rather, she was taking action

for others who were suffering, delivering them to her view of justice. She was able to know

this because of her experiences and reflection. While the Church officials knew justice only

through the law and in the eyes of God from their perspective, Joan refused to concede to

this.
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The film, from its name to the portrayal of Joan’s trial, closely mimics that of Christ’s

passion and death. Christ Himself was considered a blasphemer, a heretic who upended

society with his radical social initiatives. Retrospectively, He became known as the Son of

God and the starting point of the Catholic Church. His seemingly radical actions became the

cornerstone of what we understand to be social justice- caring for the poor and sick,

withholding judgement on those we believe to be sinners, and forgiving those who have

harmed us, to name a few. Joan, similarly to Christ, retroactively became seen as an image of

how justice is exemplified. To the leaders of the Church at the time, justice was prescribed

in the law. However, it is at times such as Joan’s trial that the question of whether or not the

law is just comes into play. What happens to Joan is not justice by the law, but rather torture

by people- specifically, Church clergy. The question also arises of whether justice by man or

by God is superior, and how that can be played out in the punitive justice system.

Joan understands that God does not operate the way humans do. She knows His

justice is superior to that of the friars, which inspired her quote that “his ways are not our

ways,” and she comes to reconcile herself with the fact that she can never make the friars

understand her experiences- they must have those experiences themselves. The value of

human dignity and respect, as well as Joan’s experience as a peasant, led Joan to know

justice in a way that was impossible for the Church leaders to know, since all they knew was

the written law. The friar’s lack of reflection created this dichotomy of justice that placed a

wall between the leaders and those whom they led- however, justice cannot exist in this

way because, at its core, justice cannot exist without experience.