Catherine M. Harmer is a Medical Mission Sister and a consultant for religious, educational, and health care systems in North America. In this on-target volume about the politics of compassion, she covers four intractable social problems: endemic poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, and inadequate health care. Harmer outlines various failed strategies for each and then presents alternative approaches that are community-based, value centered, collaborative, small, replicable, and containing educational components.

"How just is it to deprive a woman of help for her children while we subsidize the tobacco industry? How just is it to keep the minimum wage well below the poverty level while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the country?" asks Harmer. She presents an integrated approach to addressing the issue of poverty that involves reform of tax laws, training for jobs, more help from corporations and banks, and cooperative efforts by neighborhood groups. At the end of The Compassionate Community, the author includes a helpful resource list of community organizations profiled in the book.