CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Catholic [Archdiocese of Chicago IL]
September 3, 2026
By Michelle Martin
For 15 years, the Healing Garden of the Archdiocese of Chicago has offered a calm, beautiful place, a place of growth and rebirth, to offer respite and an opportunity for healing in response to clerical sexual abuse of children.
Now a National Healing Garden is expected to be dedicated on the campus of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., next year, said Michael Hoffman, a victim-survivor who spearheaded the construction of the Chicago garden and is leading the effort to establish a national garden.
Hoffman, chairman of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Hope and Healing Committee, said the idea for a national garden started about five years ago, coming out of consultations with the National Catholic Restorative Justice Initiative.
Since then, the other victim-survivors of clerical sexual abuse, clergy, officials from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and from the Catholic Project have formed a working group to make the national garden a reality. The Catholic Project is an effort sponsored by CUA to “foster effective collaboration between the clergy and the laity of the church in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis,” according to its website.
The National Healing Garden will be used in similar ways to the archdiocese’s garden, hosting prayer services during April, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and around Nov. 18, the United Nations World Day of Prevention of and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Violence, Hoffman said.
The national garden will also be available as a quiet place of healing, he said.
“The garden will be a sacred, healing place where anyone harmed by abuse in the church can meet God in silence and beauty, and where survivors — no matter their faith, background or who the perpetrator was — can pray in peace,” he said.
While the Chicago healing garden, just west of Holy Family Church, 1080 W. Roosevelt Road, features a sculpture of the Holy Family holding hands in a moment of joy, the National Healing Garden will feature a prayer labyrinth, he said.
Victim-survivors chose the sculpture for the garden in Chicago to show what is broken by sexual abuse, Hoffman said.
The labyrinth also carries meaning, showing how the path to healing is not straight, but includes twists and turns and even doubles back at times.
“The non-linear pathway of healing for all of us, abused or not abused, is real,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman said his ability to share his account of abuse by a priest and his efforts on behalf of victim-survivors were made possible by the way his story was received when he first shared it in 2006, three decades after the abuse occurred — first by his wife, then by his pastor, the archdiocese’s Office for the Protection of Children and Youth and Cardinal Francis George.
“Healing for me began at home, home at my house with my wife and kids, but also home at my parish,” he said, adding that it extended to the way he was treated by archdiocesan officials, including Cardinal George and Cardinal Cupich. “Abuse survivors want to feel heard and valued and that their story is believed. Speaking about abuse, let alone abuse by clergy — it’s just so awful, and no one can really understand it, and yet, here we are.”
Cardinal George met with any victim-survivors who wanted to meet with him, a practice that has been continued by Cardinal Cupich. Having Cardinal George listen to him, believe him and apologize on behalf of the church was instrumental to his healing, Hoffman said.
After that, Hoffman said, he wanted to find a way to help the church move forward, and Cardinal George met with him again in December 2008. The idea of a garden came out of that meeting, and a committee of four victim-survivors, two priests and staff from OPCY came together the following month.
Both the local garden and the National Healing Garden are located on property owned by church institutions, Hoffman noted, but are not inside a church. That can help victim-survivors who can’t pass through the doors of a church without triggering traumatic memories.
The working group for the National Healing Garden is still accepting donations. To donate, visit catholicproject.catholic.edu/national-healing-garden.