“Compassion is a organizing principle [for] business leaders, government leaders, arts and culture, humanitarians – you need a working principle, especially when the world is colliding into each other every day.”
The Council met in Geneva to turn the original contributions into a draft of the Charter in February.
The Council of Conscience, a multi-faith, multi-national group of religious thinkers and leaders, reviewed and sorted through all the world's contributions to craft the final Charter. They continue to be vigorous supporters and advocates for the Charter and its message.
Councilors
-
Musician, humanitarian and social activist
-
Professor of the Practice of Indo-Muslim Languages and Culture
“Compassion doesn’t come naturally…people have to learn about being compassionate. And so for me, [the Charter] reflects what we can do in our educational systems, and generally in society, to educate people about the notion of compassion.”
-
Director of the Department of Religion, Chautauqua Institution
“Throughout the ages the sages in their wisdom have called us to lives of compassion as the way to peace. In a hungry, hurting and war-weary world we must respond to that call with a passionate YES.”
-
Spiritual Director, Arsha Vijan Mandiram
“[The goal of becoming a compassionate person] is achieved through acts of compassion. First those acts are deliberate because nobody wants to be compassionate. It is a religious discipline to practice, and after the practice, it becomes natural, it becomes part of one’s nature.”
-
Episcopal Bishop of Washington
“There are broad concepts that are very difficult to understand, but the concept of compassion is found in the depths of every one the world’s major religions and also within other interfaith and interreligious experiences…that’s very, very powerful.”
-
Founder and Director, Benetvision
“In a world where force is too often the response to differences of opinion, culture and ideas of the divine, compassion is its one universal antidote. This Charter gives spiritual voices the opportunity to unite in this most authentic cry for peace.”
-
Grand Mufti of the Arab Republic of Egypt
-
Professor of Religious Studies
-
President, International Movement for a Just World (JUST)
“I regard the Charter for Compassion as that critical missing link in our endeavour to create understanding and empathy among diverse religious and cultural communities in an increasingly globalised, but polarised, world.”
-
Prime Minister's Champion for Volunteering
“We need the Charter because we have become almost used to cruelty and distrust on a massive scale. People of all faiths can use their traditions, the strength of their communities to draw attention to this. If faith is not about compassion, it has little to offer.”
-
Professor of Islamic Studies
“Everything partakes in the same drive, in the same inspiration: eating, breathing, taking care of one’s body, of one’s being and of one’s inner life are mystical, sacred acts, enabling one to reach an absolute by overcoming the self through Love-Compassion.”
-
Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
-
Rabbi of the Reform Jewish Community of The Hague
“Compassion is not hereditable. It can and therefore must be taught. The teaching of compassion, the exercise of the soul, will open the heart. And then nothing will be impossible.”
-
Former Methodist Bishop from South Africa
“The Charter of Compassion should be a message of hope. It should be a message that particularly can mobilize youth across the world and re-excite them about living lives of compassion and about the power of compassion to transform our planet.”
-
Head of Training, Learning and Development, International Committee of the Red Cross
“Compassion is not just a feeling, not just an emotion. It can include feeling and emotion but for compassion to be authentic it needs to translate into action so that it becomes a social reality, a reality in daily life.”
-
Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy and of Confucian Studies
-
Former Archbishop of Cape Town
-
Presiding clerk of the Ramallah Friends Meeting
“Religion can be a problem or a solution. It can be a tool for transformation as well. The Charter helps to bring to light the liberating aspect of the different faith traditions.”
Follow the Charter
Receive emails for updates and important news about the Charter.