Seeds of Anti-compassion

Abstract

In Chapter 2, I described the development of the divine compassion model in Catholicism, with all its different meanings and its unique Catholic field of reference. In this chapter, I present a critical perspective of this model, although this is not to say that in other streams of Christianity (Protestantism and, in a certain sense, also Easter Orthodox), the different models of compassions that evolved are not ‘deserving’ of criticism. The reason for the focus on the Roman-Catholic church is twofold. First is the fact that Catholicism is the better representative of the divine compassion model, which constitutes the basis for both its activity and its ecclesiastical structure. Second, Catholicism, more than any other stream of Christianity, identifies itself as the ‘tradition of compassion’. Compassion is an integral part of its self-image as well as its official narrative.