Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life

In this provocative essay on that least understood virtue, compassion, the authors challenge themselves and us with these questions: Where do we place compassion in our lives? Is it enough to live a life in which we hurt one another as little as possible? Is our guiding ideal a life of maximum pleasure and minimum pain? Compassion answers no.

After years of study and discussion among themselves, with other religious, and with men and women at the very center of national politics, the authors...