Prof. Collins Discusses Opportunities for Faith Communities to Act on Migration at Woolf Institute Conference
Dr. Mary E. Collins, a professor at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW), discussed faith communities’ role in advancing compassion at a talk presented at the Woolf Institute 2025 Conference at the University of Cambridge in England. The conference engaged interdisciplinary and inter-faith scholars to address questions of faith in a world of unprecedented challenges.
Collins’ talk, “Compassion and Cruelty: Potential of Faith Communities Toward Action on Migration,” examined how faith-based individuals and communities have historically exhibited both compassionate and cruel action, and how often humanity falls somewhere in the moderate middle – as Collins puts it, “struggling towards compassion but acting with cruelty.”
She asserts that faith communities are in a position to tip the scale on this moderation by encouraging compassionate action, particularly in “uncertain times when fear can be overwhelming.”
Collins’ presentation built on earlier work examining opportunities to ingrain compassion in social policies. Looking at contemporary examples of faith communities’ responses to migration, both compassionate and cruel, she offered case studies from the U.S. and elsewhere on how religious actors and organizations have acted as a moral voice, engaged in policy advocacy, and provided humanitarian and resettlement services. She also discussed the core role of compassion in all major world religions and how frequently societies misunderstand and undervalue it, saying that the meaning of compassion – “to be with in suffering” – is an attribute that doesn’t easily fit in the ideology of many advanced industrialized societies.
Mary Elizabeth Collins, AM, PhD, is a professor and chair of Human Behavior, Research, and Policy at BUSSW. Her research centers on compassion in social policy with a particular focus on the systemic inequities faced by vulnerable young people and how policy and program support can influence their life trajectories.