compassion

Is empathy a sin? A Gospel perspective

As the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is, at this writing, tomorrow, (Friday June 27th in 2025), and June is traditionally the month of the Sacred Heart, I’ve been pondering the heart’s virtues, such as love, compassion, mercy, solidarity, and empathy especially. This seems an urgent topic to write about right now as so many seem to glory in cruelty, others going so far as to call empathy a supposed “sin”.

I’ve had somebody say to me in response to a plea for compassion for migrants, that we “aren’t supposed to be the Church of ‘nice.” “No, I said, “we are supposed to be the Church of radical love.”

The argument that there is a “sin” of empathy, I likely don’t have to tell most of you, is antithetical to the Gospel. At best this argument is coming from people who are trying to protect their hearts from the pain of empathy or their conscience telling them to do something about it. Maybe it’s to justify the hardness of their hearts. God knows what it is. In any case this is the work of the devil. It’s ugly and contrary to love. Love, remember, is what God is and what we are supposed to be doing. Maybe they’ve re-interpreted what that was supposed to mean to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. It’s hard to understand how that is possible. However here we are hearing anti-empathy declarations.

This belief that empathy is to be quashed and not nurtured or respected is mostly found in certain corners of ultra-reactionary or hyper-rationalist “theology.” The argument usually goes something like:

“Empathy clouds judgment. It leads us to condone sin in others. It makes us sentimental and irrational.”

One time I came home from work and my teen and pre-teen were playing seriously inappropriate music loudly in the house. I turned it off and made them stand in front of a picture of Our Lady and recite the lyrics to her. They couldn’t. I wonder if people who discourage or disdain empathy can look into the face of Jesus and tell him that nonsense they say to other people. Lacking empathy, campaigning against it is the more likely sin.

The “sin of empathy” crowd say they feel manipulated by calls for empathy. They put labels on goodness like “virtue signaling.” rather than being inspired to act with mercy. Maybe they think the man beset by robbers deserved what he got, that the Good Samaritan was weak, stupid, being taken advantage of. Perhaps they would say that the priest and the levite who passed by without helping were the real heroes of the story. Maybe these are people who have been put-upon too much in life, or feel used when they do something for someone, or they have trouble with boundaries and they threw the “baby out with the bath water,” as my mom would say. I don’t know but they’re wrong and they try to deceive others as well.

How could empathy erase moral clarity? It can only deepen it and fill it out. As Pope Francis said in Dilexit Nos, his encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the human heart brings together fragments of ourselves into cohesion. The heart brings together soul, spirit, mind and body, enabling true discernment and understanding. We can’t attempt to cut off parts of ourselves and call that “clarity” or “judgement.” To do that only mutilates us as people, distorting our judgement and endangering our salvation.

Being “cruel to be kind” is an oxymoron when it comes to the suffering of another. It is merely mean, dumb, and contrary to the Gospel.

Empathy is the ability to enter into another’s experience — to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31). Jesus constantly showed empathy:

He wept over Lazarus (John 11:35) and over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41)
He touched lepers, (Matthew 8:22-26) embraced children, (Mark 10:13-16) noticed the suffering no one else saw and did something about it every time.
His Incarnation was an act of ultimate divine empathy — “He took on our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Isaiah 53:4, Matthew 8:17)
Toward the lowly he never used “tough love.” He reserved that for the powerful alone. He was angry with them for their oppression of others, for their hypocrisy, their legalism that got in the way of mercy, and for their lack of compassion. (See Matthew 23 for some serious rage from Jesus toward religious leaders for these very things).
He healed a woman with a crooked back and was angry when the Pharisees and Scribes confronted him with doing this on the Sabbath. He hated the way they put strict observance of rules over care and compassion for people. (Luke 13: 10-17)

To reject empathy is to reject Christ’s own way of loving. Our Lord never condemned anybody for being too soft hearted; quite the opposite. People were condemned by him for being legalistic without mercy (the Pharisees), for being indifferent to suffering (the priest and Levite in the Good Samaritan story Luke 10:25-37), for being harsh and arrogant instead of humble and compassionate (Luke 18:9–14).

Clearly the “sin of empathy” assertion is a serious distortion of the Gospel – anathema to it. People asking “yeah well who IS my neighbor” and trying to redefine that as people they agree with, like or approve of, are on the wrong path. Don’t listen. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Do not be carried away by strange teaching (Hebrews 13:8 and Ephesians 4:14). If anyone preaches to you a different Jesus than we (the apostles) have, said St. Paul, let them be accursed (Galatians 1:8-9, 2 Corinthians 11:4).

You cannot love God and hate your brother or sister. That would make you a liar. (1 John 4:20)

The intentions of Pope Leo XIV for the month of June are “that the world will grow in compassion.” He says, “Now is the time for love.”

It seems to me there is a battle of good and evil happening, a fight for the soul of the world. I don’t think I usually talk like this. But this anti empathy stuff is the devil. Resist him, solid in your faith. (1 Peter 5:8)

Jesus teaches us that it’s not enough just to resist evil. We have to pray for, bless and love those in the grip of it. We have to shine our light of love and compassion for all to see. And we need to grow in the virtues of the heart ourselves.

Jesus, gentle and humble of Heart, make our hearts like unto thine.

June 26, 2025 2

Our Lady of Sorrows

The profound suffering of another person is frightening to be present to. When my husband’s cancerous brain tumor came back after two years of remission, he asked to be alone for a while. When he wanted me there I came and got into his chair with him and held him. I listened to him talk about his feelings of raw desolation, anger, and even shame, of terror, of feeling there was no comfort anywhere.

I had no mitigating words to say. Even if I had they would have been inappropriate and insensitive. Even with the intense devotion and deep bond I had with him, there were moments I wanted to run out in the back yard away from the enormity of what he was expressing. So I prayed as I listened; just the names of Jesus and Mary every time that urge came up. That simple effort made me able to share that space with him.

When he eventually asked how I felt about this on a spiritual level, all I had was the fact of Christ’s suffering. At least as we went through this we had a God who didn’t die in a shower of rose petals but naked and bleeding like an animal, nailed to a cross, with a cry of spiritual abandonment only just having died on his lips.

My husband nodded gravely.

I thought of Mary, surrounded by mockers, violent men, her weeping friends, silently sharing the space with her Son.

I believe she was near to me as I tried to open my heart to its fullest in the weeks that followed; through Bobs creeping paralysis, his growing confusion, his final inability to speak. She was close, I know, when I tried to surrender with love at the right time to set my husband free when he was ready.

Mary was the face of love to Jesus as he suffered. I tried to be that too, to lay my own grief aside. I have no doubt that is what she did at the Cross. I am sure she thought to herself, “I will grieve later. Right now I have to be here for him, I want to look at his beautiful living face as long as I can in these last moments.” I am sure about this because when you love, that is what you do.

May Our Lady pray for us when we are called to walk with someone who suffers terribly, which all of us are in some way at some time. May she companion us when we must find a way to love more than we feel able, to seek the true meaning of profound compassion that she embodied at the scene of her Son’s execution.

September 15, 2020 1

How the “Bobly Day” began (and how you can be a part of it!) :)

My late husband, Bob Chapman, had a strong sense of community. He was deeply aware that everything he did or did not do affected everyone else’s life, that we all have an effect on one another, all the time, in all we touch and do. He called this his “skin religion,” and he tried to live it to the full.

He cultivated a constant awareness of others, and had a knack for seeing how each might be helped, and then doing it. He noticed people’s needs and contributions every day.

He always encouraged someone he saw working hard, or doing something good. He pitched in an act of kindness everywhere he could.

The sign shaker guy on the corner was cold and needed a hot chocolate. Bob bought one and had me take it out to the man.

A girl at a small town grocery store was putting back all that she had in her basket. Unknown to her, Bob had watched her do this. Following behind, he had put her things in his own basket. As he paid, he had me run outside and ask her to wait a minute. I asked this girl what was wrong. “I was out of money on my food stamp card. I thought I had more.” “What were you getting?” “After school snacks for my kids.” And here comes Bob, handing her a bag of groceries.

A kid in our neighborhood loved basketball, and played often in his driveway. Bob noticed his net was broken one day. He went and got the kid a net, leaving it on his front porch.

I remember a time he fixed the cook’s car in the parking lot at the Vietnamese restaurant we liked. He asked about it every time, too, to make sure it was still running OK.

134304_1818186018869_1841338_o-1 — Bob 🙂

When he got where he shouldn’t be driving anymore because of the return of his brain tumor, he gave his truck away to someone at work who needed a vehicle.

When Bob mowed our lawn, he always mowed the neighbor’s yard, too. Sometimes he went around the corner to mow an elderly couple’s yard while he was at it, as a matter of course. He considered it to be what he was supposed to do.

When he saw anything broken, he fixed it. He would never have thought of not doing so. It was his gift. So it’s what he did. Bob walked around with a wrench in his back pocket. It made me smile. It was a good symbol of his sense of purpose.

After Bob’s death following a valiant fight with Brain Cancer (April 13, 2012,) to celebrate his birthday, December 13th, we began what we call, “The Bobly Day.” It is a day of random acts of kindness, of noticing the needs around us, of sneaky good deeds, gestures of love and service, wherever we are.

2017 will be our 5TH December to celebrate Bob’s birthday this way. It is mainly a Face Book event. Friends invite their friends, who invite their friends. People who never knew Bob celebrate this day along with those of us who did. On the event page, I ask that people report back to the rest of us what they did. Whoever is comfortable with sharing does so.

The usual number of people officially “signed up” are a bit over 100 people. We have “Bobly friends” in New York City, Chicago, California, South Africa, Scotland,
and of course, here in Texas, going out and looking for good deeds to do and having fun doing them!

Streets have been picked up, (something Bob used to do around the neighborhood,) stranded motorists helped, leaves raked, gifts given, appreciation expressed, hugs offered, needy children cheered, angry words held back, veterans’ needs attended to, rides given, smiles exchanged, tabs paid, and animals helped. Here are some of the examples people have shared the last six years, on face book, or e-mail, or by telling me.

“I helped an old guy in line at the doctor’s office who needed blood pressure medicine but had no money for the required doctor visit. I paid for his visit so he could get his medicine.”

“Was going to go out of town this weekend, but gave my trip money to a Christian rehab center instead!”

“Today at the Texas Aggie women’s basketball game, my husband and I bought teddy bears to donate to their teddy bear drive.”

“I taught a guitar lesson to a girl who couldn’t afford a teacher.”

“While walking through the airport, I spotted an elderly lady resting on a huge recliner. I realized it was a massage chair. I put $5 (the maximum) in the slot and it started humming and moving that dear, little lady. She let out an audible “ooooo” and smiled ever so broadly. She then thanked me and said, “My, but it HAS been a long time”, winked and then smiled some more. I’m not sure which one of us was enjoying her “massage” more. I’m giggling as I type this.”

“The kids made blankets for the hospital, and took them there today. They spent some of their own money to get the materials.”

“I paid it forward at the What- a- Burger drive through!”

“I hugged a homeless guy and took him lunch.”

“I gave up my seat on the subway.”

“I shared about the Bobly Day and his life with someone going through her fifth round of cancer.”

“There was a man on the corner with a sign that said “I have three kids.” I have my three girls in the car and would do anything for them. I handed him a 20 and said Merry Christmas.”

“I made gifts for the people that work at all the fast food places I go to. They were thrilled!”

“Today I’m donating baby things for moms in need.”

Looking for ways to help others is one of the ways Bob Chapman lived, and found meaning in his beautiful life, by practicing his “skin religion.” We can, too.

23539_1369079831495_2826510_n (1) — Me and Bob at work in the Press Room at the Eagle

“I want my job to be just going around and helping people- fixing their car if they need it, mowing their lawn, getting them groceries, whatever they need, and to tell them, ‘God loves you!’ ~ Bob Chapman

*If you would like to join our event (Dec. 13-16 world wide) on Face Book, come on over! https://www.facebook.com/events/413215589122405/?notif_t=plan_user_associated&notif_id=1513098439017694

December 12, 2017 1