Friday, March 5, 2010

The Charter for Compassion

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The Charter for Compassion is the result of Karen Armstrong’s 2008 TED Prize wish and made possible by the generous support of the Fetzer Institute. It was unveiled to the world on November 12, 2009. I subscribed to it in mid-November, 2009. So far 40,425 people have subscribed around the world.

The Charter, crafted by people all over the world and drafted by a multi-fath, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders, seeks to change the conversation so that compassion becomes a key word in public and private discourse, making it clear that any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt ~ be it religious or secular ~ has failed the test of our time. It is not simply a statement of principle; it is above all a summons to creative, practical and sustained action to meet the political, moral, religious, social and cultural problems of our time. I invite my readers to adopt the charter as your own, to make a lifelong commitment to live with compassion. I think the principle is especially relevant when discussing the life and times of Fr. Marcial Maciel and the congregation of the Legionaries of Christ.

The Charter:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree about the need for compassion particularly towards rank and file members of the Legion and Regnum Christi.

My question: could Marciel have been a CIA agent with the mission to turn the Church in Latin America away from the Theology of Liberation?

That the Evangelical Movement has been financed by the CIA in Latin America is open knowledge. So there is a real possibility that Maciel was a CIA agent, and that the Legion, and its growth since the 70ies may have been financed via the CIA. That he admitted as much to his common-law wife increases the plausibility of this hypothesis, in that there may have been more than a grain of truth in the lie.

This might explain a lot of things: his identities, his false documents, ect.

Anonymous said...

The fact that you can entertain theories like this explains the very frail sand the Legion is standing on.

Anonymous said...

Anon 2: Welcome to Latin America, where this kind of thing is a fact of life.