Pope Leo: Compassion Is A Matter of Humanity, Not A Religious Issue

BY KIELCE GUSSIE 

Continuing his reflections on the parables in the Gospel during his Wednesday General Audience, Pope Leo XIV recalled the “learned and well-prepared man—a doctor of the Law” from Luke’s Gospel. The Pope says this young man is too focused on himself and ignores others.

The doctor of the Law speaks to Jesus, inquiring how he can inherit eternal life. But Pope Leo exposed “the deeper need for attention” behind this question as the young man asks Jesus to explain the word “neighbour.”

Whom have I loved?

To answer this, Jesus recounted a parable that changes the young man’s question entirely from “Who loves me?” to “Whom have I loved?”

The Pope explained the first is immature, “while the second is the question of an adult who has understood the meaning of life.” The first is inactive, while the second requires action.

Jesus then shares the parable of the Good Samaritan, whose setting is the road a man takes to travel from Jerusalem on a mountain to Jericho, which is at sea level. Pope Leo likened this journey to life, calling it a “difficult and dangerous road.”

On his journey, the man is beaten, robbed, and left for dead, which can happen to us when “circumstances, people—even those we’ve trusted—strip us of everything and leave us out in the open.”

It is not a religious issue

But, the Pope pointed out, it is in these encounters with others that we come to know who we really are. When we meet someone in need, we are faced with a choice: “to care for them or to look the other way.”

Pope Leo opens his second General Audience with the sign of the cross (@Vatican Media)

In the parable, two people, a priest and a Levite, who we would imagine would stop and care for the hurt man, simply choose to ignore him. This, Pope Leo highlighted, shows that “religious practice alone does not automatically lead to compassion.” It is not a characteristic of religion but one of being human. Human beings are called to be compassionate, no matter their religion.

The priest and the Levite represent all of us—in a hurry to get home. This hurry can keep us from being compassionate because, the Pope warned, people “who believe their journey takes priority are not willing to stop for others.”

Compassion = taking risks

Only a Samaritan, “someone from a people traditionally despised,” stops to help the wounded man. The Samaritan helps, not out of a religious requirement, but because “he is one human being in front of another human being in need.”

Compassion, Pope Leo stressed, takes form through concrete actions, because in order to help someone, “you cannot stay at a distance.” To be compassionate, you have to get involved and be prepared to “even get dirty, perhaps take risks.”

The Samaritan is an example of compassion because he physically takes care of the wounded man. The Pope underlined that truly helping someone “means being willing to feel the weight of another’s pain.”

He pointed out that only when we recognize that we ourselves are the wounded man can we truly feel compassion.