Compassion

"The principal of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions and it calls us always to treat all others as we would wish to be treated ourselves."

With these words, Karen Armstrong unveiled the Charter for Compassionon November 9th 2009.  This charter is for people of every faith and those with no faith from around the world. The charter contains the public confession that “we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion."

The Charter for Compassion was devised by Karen Armstrong who has written several books on religion and faith in the contemporary world. She was at one time a Roman Catholic nun before studying at Oxford University and ending up as a teacher. In recent years she has become widely known as a writer and speaker. Her study of the world’s religions revealed very clearly their differences but she identified a common thread that ran through them all. The common thread is compassion.

This dream is not simple or naieve but sums up the aspirations of all thinking and caring people irrespective of their faith. The Charter “impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.”

By early 2012 more than 85,000 people had affirmed the charter online. It has been implemented in various settings. One of the most notable is in a jail in Washington State (USA) where the goal was to decrease violence by 2.5 percent. The project was much more successful than hoped and violence decreased by 100 percent. The creators are evaluating the advantages for the federal government of implementing this program across the country.