Christine Haider, 25, is preparing for her confirmation to the Roman Catholic Church. When asked about her confirmation name, she smiles broadly and says, "Dorothy." Seventy-five years since the founding of the Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin continue to call a new generation of the faithful to a radical gospel of nonviolent resistance to evil and hospitality to the poor.

Started in New York City with a one-penny paper called The Catholic Worker, and eventually two houses of hospitality for homeless women and men, the Catholic Worker Movement has bloomed to at least one house of hospitality and war resistance in most states, along with houses in Canada, Mexico, England, Sweden, Germany, and New Zealand. Working both against the institutional evil of the state -- named once by Martin Luther King Jr. as the triple evils of racism, militarism, and materialism -- and for the victims of the state, the houses spring up in an organic meeting between the unique charism of the Catholic Workers involved and the needs of the community. There are Catholic Worker farms as well, according to Maurin's determination to give the poor an opportunity to work and live in dignity and find their sustenance in community and in communion with the land. There are no requirements for calling a project a Catholic Worker, no board or standards committee, and no fees. The Catholic Worker is not a franchise but always a labor of faith and love, a home built without walls.

Somehow in making room for the marginal in society, those at times marginalized in the church also found a home. When Haider, who struggled with a call to priesthood as a teenager, is asked what Dorothy's example is to women today, she says, "The way I identify myself as a woman and the way Dorothy identified herself as a woman is very different, but, nonetheless, for me as a woman in a very patriarchal religion Dorothy is a role model of both a strong female character in the church and a way to live out the Catholic faith outside of the institution in a way that is freeing to women but also a whole host of other people." And so in its 75 years, those who found no place to minister within the church as it stood -- women, married people, persons of different races and sexualities, and those who longed to build the simple communal apostolic church recorded in the Acts of the apostles -- have often been able to contribute their gifts to the Catholic Worker. In fact, there are even Catholic Workers who are not Roman Catholic.

Perhaps the requirement to being a Catholic Worker begins with a call to prophetic presence with the poor on the breadlines and those under the hail of fire brought down by military power. In the heart of this call is God's dangerous command to love one another, a call made dangerous by a world with casual and rampant individual and institutional violence against both neighbor and enemy. Dorothy reflected on the lack of this love present in the world when she said, "We have not yet loved our neighbor with the kind of love that is a precept to the extent of laying down our life for him. And our life very often means our money ... it means our daily bread, our daily living, our rent, our clothes ...." In such a world, loving one anther can have some uncomfortable consequences, both in loss of privilege and in loss of freedom. Dorothy said herself that, "Love is indeed a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, of each of us, but it is the only answer."

Eda Uca-Dorn is a member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C., which is a house of war resistance and hospitality to five formerly homeless families. She and her husband, Mike, are currently organizing around the issues of peak oil, climate change, and the impending resource wars. She may be reached at eda.uca.dorn@gmail.com. If you would like to learn more about the Catholic Worker Movement, check out www.catholicworker.org.

When Pope Benedict XVI recently spoke to the U.N. General Assembly, many hoped he would denounce specific wars and injustices. But he rather took a step back and addressed the fundamental principles that the world community should follow. His speech was a primer on Catholic social teaching – solidarity, human dignity, and the common good.

The heart of his speech was grounded in human rights based on the "innate dignity" of every person. Benedict said:

The life of the community, both domestically and internationally, clearly demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees that follow from them, are measures of the common good that serve to evaluate the relationship between justice and injustice, development and poverty, security and conflict. The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security. Indeed, the victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then become violators of peace. … a vision of life firmly anchored in the religious dimension can help to achieve this, since recognition of the transcendent value of every man and woman favours conversion of heart, which then leads to a commitment to resist violence, terrorism and war, and to promote justice and peace.

In other words, the recognition that each of us is created in the image of God means that what is at stake in how we treat one another is nothing less than how we regard the image of God in us. This recognition leads to:

Indeed, questions of security, development goals, reduction of local and global inequalities, protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate, require all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law, and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet. I am thinking especially of those countries in Africa and other parts of the world which remain on the margins of authentic integral development, and are therefore at risk of experiencing only the negative effects of globalization. In the context of international relations, it is necessary to recognize the higher role played by rules and structures that are intrinsically ordered to promote the common good, and therefore to safeguard human freedom.

That is the heart of the issue. It is always the "least of these"- the poorest and must vulnerable – who test our commitment. Those who are the left out and forgotten are those whose human rights must be protected by international bodies and international law, the "structures that are intrinsically ordered to promote the common good."

Thank God for The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Now that's a phrase I never imagined uttering. Then again, who would have thought they'd be the institution to jump so eloquently to the defense of the pope from the likes of Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo?

During his visit last week, Pope Benedict XVI gave a consistent and prophetic call to U.S. Catholics:

I want to encourage you and your communities to continue to welcome the immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrow and trials, and to help them flourish in their new home. This, indeed, is what your fellow countrymen have done for generations. From the beginning, they have opened their doors to the tired, the poor, the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." These are the people whom America has made her own.

Somehow this beautiful pastoral call prompted Lou Dobbs to claim the pope was "insulting our country," and Tom Tancredo to accuse him of "faith-based marketing." As if a global spiritual leader shouldn't have the right to offer guidance on how we view and treat our fellow human beings? It's not as if he was laying out policy prescriptions. If anything, the pope's words were a simple and powerful reminder of precisely the pastoral role Jesus calls us to. Not to mention our past as a nation of immigrants.

Today's WSJ said it better than I ever could have:

The pope welcomes immigrants because he's Catholic, not because they are. He isn't "marketing" his faith. He's practicing it.

Patty Kupfer is the Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform campaign coordinator at Sojourners.

I love the "construction phase" of liturgy and great ceremony. Waiting at the John Paul II Cultural Center for Pope Benedict to arrive for a meeting with interreligious leaders, I took a quick tour through some of the artwork. I was especially impressed by the wacky Warhol print of John Paul II. Also, through the atrium windows I could see a 25-yard-long brightly colored creation laid out on the floor by Guatemalan artists to welcome the pope and wish him peace. It appears to be made of brightly colored sawdust and colored rice—like a Tibetan sand painting.

Up in the press balcony I had a bird's-eye view of staff giving the golden guest chairs a final dusting and arranging the signage labeled "Papal Entourage." The sacred music ensemble (called, and I'm not kidding, The Suspicious Cheese Lords) ran through their harmonies both for the sung version of the Prayer of St. Francis and the Muslim evening prayer.

A watchful secret service agent kept guard next to the Papal Chair. Empty. Simple. Waiting. Cardinals and bishops adjusted their various colored birettas. Up the sidewalk came representatives from the rich tapestry of religions that call America home. Saffron robes, silk saris, yarmulkes and keffiyehs, turbans and khimar -- I'm reminded how unusual this sight is in too many places around the world.

Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.

Who says that Americans don’t have a sense of humor? This video ad put out by the Washington, D.C., transit authority prompting the faithful to ride Metro when the Pope visits this week proves the point.

The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference was less than pleased and asked Metro to pull the ad. My guess is the Pope would have laughed—but the Bishops apparently need additional practice in exercising their authority.

Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.

When I asked a leading progressive biblical scholar who was doing the very best bible work on images of God and gender theology, she didn't hesitate in her answer: Elizabeth Johnson, she said.

Johnson, a Roman Catholic sister in the Congregation of St. Joseph, is interviewed about images of God in the January U.S. Catholic (Honor your Father and Mother). This is the theme she also takes up in her new book Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (Continuum, 2007).

Stale images of God aren't working for today's seekers, says Johnson. New ones are emerging from the experiences of all God's people – male and female. In the excerpt below, she reflects on God-language and invitational language in worship. But read the whole interview. It's excellent.

What does it mean that we call God by male terms?

I have this sentence that I quote over and over again: The symbol of God functions. The male symbol of God functions to privilege a certain way of male rule in the world and to undercut women's spiritual power, women's own sense of themselves as made in the image of God.

We women have to abstract ourselves from our bodies to see ourselves in the image of God if God is always depicted as male. It has serious ramifications for spirituality and for the identity of believers and for the community.

Why is there so much resistance to using feminine images of God?

I think the rejection of the inclusive language lectionary, which the U.S. bishops applied for in 1992 and which was rejected by the Vatican, was a clear recognition that once you start making room for even nonsexist language about humanity, let alone feminine images of God, there's a fear that women will want to move in socially and politically, and then you've got a challenge to church structure as we know it. I think there's a great deal of fear of women's power.

Can you imagine a church that took female images of God to heart?

Let me say, I think women and men are equal in sin and grace. I don't think women are going to be the salvation of the church or of this country. I think we can all get on power trips. I'm convinced of it, maybe because I've been in a women's religious community, and I have six sisters. I am disabused of this romantic notion of women's greatness as compared to men.

At this moment in history, women have figured out what's wrong with the current pattern and how their experiences have led to different ways of relating, organizing, and running things. Given the chance, they would bring that pattern into the church and let it play off and see what develops.

Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is holding its annual meeting this week. They have elected a new president, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, and will vote on their teaching document for the 2008 election. Two other actions are worth noting.

The bishops approved a letter from their International Committee to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging a diplomatic solution with Iran.

Recent news accounts speculating on the possible use of force against Iran are especially troubling. From a moral perspective, in the absence of an immediate threat against the United States or our allies, military action would constitute an act of preventive war. The Catholic Church teaches: "[E]ngaging in a preventive war without clear proof that an attack is imminent cannot fail to raise serious moral and juridical questions." … The use of force must always be a last resort. In addition, the failure to be transparent about one's nuclear energy program is not grounds for military intervention, nor is the possession of nuclear weapons or the issuing of bellicose statements.

The bishops also approved a statement on a responsible transition in Iraq. They noted that the concerns they had expressed about the war before it began must "now give way to new moral questions."

Our country needs a new direction to reduce the war's deadly toll and to bring our people together to deal with the conflict's moral and human dimensions. Our nation needs a new bipartisan approach to Iraq policy based on honest and civil dialogue.

Our Conference encourages our national leaders to focus on the morally and politically demanding, but carefully limited goal of fostering a "responsible transition" and withdrawal at the earliest opportunity consistent with that goal. The moral demands of this path begin with addressing the humanitarian crisis in Iraq and minimizing further loss of human life.

And, they pointed out that

Catholic teaching has long held that peace is more than the absence of war; it is built on the foundation of justice. This moral insight means that building a just peace in Iraq requires far more than military action; it demands a comprehensive political, diplomatic and economic effort. This effort begins in Iraq, but it does not end there. For this reason, we believe sustained U.S. efforts to collaborate with the other nations, including Syria and Iran, are critically important for bringing some measure of stability to Iraq.

Both statements are in the best tradition of Catholic social teaching and are worth studying. A responsible U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and diplomacy over war with Iran would provide the opportunity for a more stable and peaceful solution to both issues.

This year, Nov. 11 will be a particularly joyous day for this veteran. Though I will not be attending any events, I can still reasonably expect a few pats on the back or some kind words in recognition of my six years in service to our country. Thankfully, I am past the awkwardness that used to greet me as supporters approached me with their gratitude in airports or shopping malls - seeking hugs and handshakes to express their appreciation for my sacrifice. I have overcome the demons that accompanied me back from Iraq, who insisted the strangers' thanks were idolatrous and superficial. However, I do continue to pray that well-wishers offer "welcome home" in place of "thank you" - the latter often being misunderstood, as many service members do not consider the acts they have committed to be commendable. Beside merely a celebration of patriotism, Nov. 11 is also a day to remember and rejoice in peace. Armistice Day holds a place in history as the day the Allies and Germany signed a treaty in Compiègne, France, ending hostilities on the Western Front. To this day, many people still reserve a moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. to respect the 8 million who perished in WWI.

Though for Christians, the day does not end there. This Sunday the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, one of the first saints not to be martyred. In fact, St. Martin was one of many to be beatified who, by today's standards, would be identified as a conscientious objector - an individual verifiably opposed to "war in any form." At one time a Roman centurion, Martin came to a "crystallization" of conscience, laying down his sword and declaring, "I am a soldier of Christ, it is not permissible for me to fight." It has been speculated that in 1918, Nov. 11 was chosen as Armistice Day in part due to St. Martin, who is especially the patron of soldiers and chaplains. It is curious to consider that this Christian soldier in fact thought it more Christlike to return to the front lines unarmed than with the sword the empire placed in his hands. David Thoreau, an inspiration to another saintly Martin, believed that a creative, nonviolent minority could serve the state by resisting it with the intention of improving it. Could this in fact be the embodiment of service to the state Paul speaks of in Romans 13? After all, he and St. Martin both were imprisoned for their beliefs…

Finally, I come to the most celebratory story behind Nov. 11 for this war-wearied veteran. Not long after my own road to Damascus conversion experience, I miraculously found a beautiful woman as crazy about Jesus as I was (and still am). An abbreviated courtship ensued, and within seven months, I had proposed. As our relationship developed, we found that our distinct beliefs matured as well. Faced with a similar crossroads regarding her own service to God and country, she too followed the path Martin helped forge so many centuries ago. Not long ago she filed for discharge as a conscientious objector, declaring herself a soldier in Christ's nonviolent army of peace.

Left to decide our date of wedded bliss, my 'better half,' my muse, settled on an otherwise nondescript day in November. This Sunday, we will share in the sacrament of matrimony - the threefold meaning of Nov. 11 is sure to be a fitting celebration of our combined attempts at patriotism, pacifism, and piety. We have high hopes and big dreams of continuing our service to fellow centurions, and with God's grace his gift to us can continue to bless others.

Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel and the West Bank. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and currently resides in Camden, New Jersey, in an intentional Christian community called Camden House, where he continues to seek ways to wage peace wherever he goes. He blogs at courageouscoward.blogspot.com.

I'm grateful to Tony Perkins and FRC Action for hosting the Oct. 19 dialogue focused on the "values" for values voters. I also thank Richard Land, my frequent dialogue partner and friend. I believe we found areas of real agreement and also healthy disagreement - and that is good.

We both agreed that the issue is not whether faith should help to shape our public life, but how.

I believe that Christians across the political spectrum might have more common concerns than people think - and potential common ground - on critical issues.

First, there are biblical principles of the kingdom of God on which we can agree.

Second, there are prudential judgments on policies where there is room for disagreement and deeper dialogue

Third, we must make sure our faith trumps ideology. For me, that often means making sure that my faith challenges the Left. And as I said to you on Friday, most of you probably don't have that problem! But how can you make sure that your faith challenges the Right?

And together, as Richard and I both try to do, we should challenge those who wish to banish religion from the public square.

On what do we agree?

We all agree that faith plays an important role in public life; faith is personal but never private. But as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The church should not be the master or the servant of the state, but the conscience of the state." King also never endorsed a candidate but made them endorse his agenda. There's a lesson for us in that.

Red and blue, Left and Right, are not biblical categories. They are political ones, and religious people don't easily fit the labels - nor should we. God's politics resists ideology and often calls us to transcend our narrow political categories and place our commonality as Christians above any political allegiance or identification with a political party.

God is not a Republican or a Democrat. The people of God must not be in the pocket of any political party. There is a great danger in being too close to either side and not maintaining our critical prophetic distance. We should be the ultimate swing vote, judging all the candidates by our moral compass.

Presidential candidates were at your conference seeking your vote, and you took a straw poll which became the center of media attention in their coverage of your gathering. But let me suggest that if your favorite candidate wins (whoever that turns out to be), they will not be able to really change the biggest moral issues of our time unless there is a movement from outside to continue pushing them. Remember, Lyndon Johnson did not become a civil rights leader until a faith-based civil rights movement made him one.

When politics fails to resolve the great moral issues, social movements often rise up to change politics - and the best social movements have spiritual foundations. We have been divided, but perhaps we can find ways we might work together in the future on the greatest moral issues of our time.

In the spirit of the great social movements that Christians have helped to lead—abolition of slavery, child labor laws, women's suffrage, and the civil rights movement—we might do it again.

The more we look like our evangelical foreparents, the more we see our faith as the spark for social justice, the more faithful and united we could be.

And this is the key: The biblical prophets tell us that God judges societies not by their gross national product, their military strength, or their cultural dominance, but by their justice and righteousness - especially how they treat the weak and vulnerable.

We know there are multiple threats to human life and dignity that suggest a new moral agenda that could bring us together:

• Strengthening marriage and families
• Renewing the moral fabric of our culture
• Overcoming extreme global poverty and disease, as well as unnecessary poverty at home
• Ending human trafficking
• Healing the wounds of racism
• Protecting God's creation
• Finding a better path to national and global security
• Advancing a consistent ethic of the sanctity of life

If those we could agree on these basic principles, we could reshape American politics - and, with God's help, we might change some of the big things that politics has been unable to.

As for politics in an election year, the Catholic Bishops have some good advice for us. They counsel Christians to be:

• political but not partisan
• principled but not ideological
• clear but also civil
• engaged but not used

Because, above all, (back to where we started) we are called to be faithful to the principles of the kingdom of God.

Let the dialogue continue.

In August, 1945, Fr. George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Army Air Forces, was stationed on Tinian Island in the South Pacific. He served as priest and pastor for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was discharged in l946. During the next 20 years he gradually began to realize that what he had done and believed during the war was wrong, and that the only way he could be a Christian was to be a pacifist. He was deeply influenced in this process by the civil rights movement and the works of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.

In 1972 he met Charles C. McCarthy, a theologian, lawyer, and father of 10. McCarthy, who founded the Center for the Study of Nonviolence at the University of Notre Dame, was leading a workshop on nonviolence at Zabelka's church. The two men fell into the first of several conversations about the issues raised by the workshop. Some time later, Zabelka reached the conclusion that the use of violence under any circumstances was incompatible with his understanding of the gospel of Christ. When this article appeared in Sojourners in August 1980, Fr. Zabelka was retired, gave workshops on nonviolence and assisted in diocesan work in Lansing, Michigan.—The Editors of Sojourners

Charles McCarthy: Father Zabelka, what is your relationship to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945?

Fr. Zabelka: During the summer of 1945, July, August, and September, I was assigned as Catholic chaplain to the 509th Composite Group on Tinian Island. The 509th was the atomic bomb group.

McCarthy: What were your duties in relationship to these men? Zabelka: The usual. I said mass on Sunday and during the week. Heard confessions. Talked with the boys, etc. Nothing significantly different from what any other chaplain did during the war.

McCarthy: Did you know that the 509th was preparing to drop an atomic bomb?

Zabelka: No. We knew that they were preparing to drop a bomb substantially different from and more powerful than even the "blockbusters" used over Europe, but we never called it an atomic bomb and never really knew what it was before August 6, 1945. Before that time we just referred to it as the "gimmick" bomb.

McCarthy: So since you did not know that an atomic bomb was going to be dropped you had no reason to counsel the men in private or preach in public about the morality of such a bombing?

Zabelka: Well, that is true enough; I never did speak against it, nor could I have spoken against it since I, like practically everyone else on Tinian, was ignorant of what was being prepared. And I guess I will go to my God with that as my defense. But on Judgment Day I think I am going to need to seek more mercy than justice in this matter.

Click here to read the rest of the Sojourners interview with Fr. George Zabelka.

To speak out against the nuclear weapons build-up and sign on to a "Statement from Religious Americans Opposing the Complex 2030 Plan," click here.

While Pope Benedict XVI has been criticized for some of his recent statements, here's a short speech he delivered on Sunday before the midday Angelus that is well worth reading. Noting that he is on vacation, he said, "I feel all the more intensely the impact of the sorrow of the news that comes to me about bloody altercations and episodes of violence that are occurring in so many parts of the world." The Pope went on:

War, with the mourning and destruction it brings, has always been rightly considered a calamity that contrasts with God's plan. He created everything for existence and, in particular, wants to make a family of the human race. In this moment it is not possible for me to not return to a significant date in history: August 1, 1917—almost exactly 90 years ago—my venerable predecessor, Benedict XV, published his celebrated "Nota Alle Potenze Belligeranti" (Note to the Warring Powers), asking them to put an end to the First World War (cf. ASS 9 [1917], 417-420).

As that huge conflict raged, the Pope had the courage to affirm that it was a "useless bloodbath." This expression of his left a mark on history. It was a justified remark given the concrete situation in that summer of 1917, especially on the front here in this part of northern Italy. But those words, "useless bloodbath," have a larger, prophetic application to other conflicts that have destroyed countless human lives.

He concluded his remarks:

From this place of peace here in the north of Italy, where one feels even more vitally how unacceptable the "useless bloodbaths" are, I renew the call to follow with tenacity the way of law, to firmly renounce the arms race, to reject in general the temptation to face new situations with old systems.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that a group of Catholic members of Congress sent a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, asking to meet with the bishops to discuss mobilizing the church to end the war in Iraq.

The bishops have responded. Thomas G. Wenski, the bishop of Orlando and chairman of the USCCB's Committee on International Policy, wrote in a letter to the members of Congress:

The Catholic Bishops of the United States share your deep concern for the dangerous and deteriorating situation in Iraq. Too many Iraqi and American lives have been lost. Too many Iraqi communities have been shattered. Too many civilians have been driven from their homes. The human and financial costs of the war are staggering. Representatives of our Conference welcome the opportunity to meet with you and other policy makers to discuss ways to pursue the goal of a "responsible transition" to bring an end to the war in Iraq.

The current situation in Iraq is unacceptable and unsustainable, as is the policy and political stalemate among decision makers in Washington. Our Conference hopes to work with the Congress and the Administration to forge bipartisan policies on ways to bring about a responsible transition and an end to the war.

After summarizing the Bishops' previous statements on the war, Bishop Wenski continued:

Our Conference is under no illusions regarding Iraq. None of the alternative courses of action are without consequences for human life and dignity. There is no path ahead that leads to an unambiguously good outcome for Iraq, our nation and the world. It was for this very reason that we raised serious moral questions regarding military intervention in Iraq in the first place. Nevertheless, our nation must have the moral courage to change course in Iraq and to break the policy and political stalemate in Washington so that we can walk a difficult path that does the most good and the least damage in human and moral terms.

This war may finally be coming to an end. And the role of the church could and should be decisive in making it so.

Sinead O’Connor’s not angry anymore; or at least not angry in the same way. Her tearing up of a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live 15 years ago, combined with what we think we know about her ordination into an unofficial offshoot of the Catholic church, give a convenient excuse for people to ignore her. This is a pity, because it makes us forget that she produced one of the only memorable and honest songs about love in the 1990s, her cover version of Prince’s "Nothing Compares 2 U," and one of the most beautiful hymns of spiritual comfort (1997’s "This is to Mother You" on her Gospel Oak EP).

She has made her spirituality more explicit than ever on Theology, her new double album, and the anger of early Sinead has given way to songs of hope, confidence, and worship. In 23 tracks she sings of God being present in the earthiness of a life lived between the search for truth and the struggle to get by—when she relates how God met "my need on a chronic Christmas Eve" it is easy to imagine the pain that many people feel at the times when the culture is forcing them to pretend to be happy.

In an album infused by the Hebrew Bible ("They dress the wounds of my poor people as though they’re nothing; saying peace when there’s no peace"), she expresses her desire to "make something beautiful" for God. O’Connor, who grew up in the 1970s and '80s in an often culturally bleak Ireland, is speaking out of a context that is trying to shake off its sometimes theocratic past. So it’s a risk to make music that quotes the Bible favorably. But she gets away with it—even bringing new moods to "I Don’t Know How to Love Him" from "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "By the Rivers of Babylon" —because she’s not afraid to show that she is indeed sometimes afraid.

Frederick Buechner famously wrote that, in the search for God, "without room for doubt, there would be no room for me" —I for one am grateful that Sinead O’Connor has not allowed dogma to suppress her personality and questions about what authentic spirituality is. Indeed, to sing "I Don’t Know How to Love Him" is a pretty good summation of much contemporary religion, which often seems so unsure what to do with itself.

Her spirituality doesn’t fit easily within ecclesial borders—there’s more than enough Rastafarianism, Buddhism, and generic "God as energy" ideas to go 'round here; not a bad marketing hook or a bad idea since O’Connor has said that the album is partly a response to the global insecurity that affects all faiths and none since Sept. 11. But as the Celtic writer John O’Donohue says, the best response to evil is to make something beautiful. You get the sense that when Sinead O’Connor says that railing against injustice is an act of love, that she also believes it’s better to light a candle than to curse the fact that it’s dark out there. No one can know the depths of the soul-search that goes in inside the heart of Sinead O’Connor—her music over the past 20 years has revealed someone never less than honest—sometimes painfully so. If she can stand in place for seekers like me—who sometimes yearn for the certainties of youthful faith, but know that mature spirituality has to transcend fundamentalism—then I’m grateful. Here’s to the next 20 years.

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

Last week, in a little-noticed story, a group of Catholic members of Congress sent a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, asking the bishops to help mobilize the church toward ending the war in Iraq.

The letter was sent to Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the USCCB and Bishop Thomas G. Wenski, International Justice and Peace Committee Chair, requesting a meeting with the USCCB. The members explained:

We have taken great comfort in the prophetic words of many Catholic leaders, relied on them for inspiration during our deliberations, and welcomed them in helping shape policy. If we understand the Catholic tradition correctly, thoughtful Church leaders around the world do not believe that the war in Iraq meets the strict conditions for a just war or the high moral standards for overriding the presumption against the use of force. We agree and seek an end to this injustice.

Our concerns are rooted in both the political realm and in our faith and manifest in our efforts to enact legislation that will bring an end to this war. Pope John Paul II framed the moral question well when he said: "When, as in Iraq in these days, war threatens the fate of humanity, it is even more urgent to proclaim with a strong and decisive voice that peace is the only path for building a society which is more just and marked by solidarity. Violence and weapons can never resolve the problems of man."

Religion News Service reported:

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the USCCB, said the bishops were considering the letter and that they have already made repeated statements about the war. "Certainly the bishops have made no secret about their concerns over the war in Iraq," Walsh said.

As Congress begins this week to seriously debate legislative proposals to end the war, the continued voice of the church is critical. As the members of Congress concluded:

In our own education in the faith, we find the testimony of the scriptures compelling, and although we have no illusions about the complexities of our current situation in Iraq, we have come to believe that peace cannot simply exist as an ideal—our efforts must be accompanied by actions as we embrace the teachings of peace and justice.

History does not tend to be kind to Christian theologians who demand war.

Peter Steinfels recently called attention to a contemporary history lesson drawn in an ongoing debate between Catholic neo-cons who have supported the Iraq war and the popes and bishops who have not (“A Catholic Debate Mounts on the Meaning of ‘Just War,’” The New York Times, April 14). In the April issue of First Things, George Weigel revisits his arguments for the justice and necessity of the Iraq war and refuses to admit regret. Weigel instead casts blame for the failures in Iraq in two directions: the U.S. foreign policy community who failed adequately to plan for the war’s aftermath, and the Arab Islamic political culture whose “irresponsibility, authoritarian brutality, rage and self-delusion” has caused them to refuse “the foreigner’s gift” of political freedom that we have brought them. (I’m not making that up.)

The history lesson is delivered in a commentary by the editors in Commonweal (“Bishops and Their Critics,” April 20), who remind their readers of Weigel’s original well-publicized arguments in favor of the invasion back in 2003. They focus on one key point: In the face of vociferous objections to the impending war by the pope and the U.S. bishops, Weigel argued that Catholics should defer to the president’s judgment on whether or not this war, or any war, met the just war criteria.

Weigel’s argument on this point was two-fold: 1) the president has access to privileged information, and 2) the president, by virtue of his office, exercises a “charism of political discernment” not shared by leaders of the church. The Commonweal editorial wonders whether all the mistakes that Weigel points to in his recent article undermine his claim of the special charism enjoyed by the president. Commonweal remarks that, in retrospect, the Catholic bishops’ charism in matters of war and peace looks pretty darn good compared to that of the president.

Weigel’s argument here is self-defeating. In the case of the Iraq war, the more he insists on point number one, then the more point two is proven false. If the president did indeed have access to privileged information, then he either misinterpreted that information or deliberately lied about it to make a case for the war. This conclusion seems inescapable, given what we now know about how pre-war intelligence was handled.

Regardless of the facts of this particular case, moral judgments about war, like all moral judgments, are not primarily a matter of good information. Good information is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for sound moral judgments. Sound moral judgments depend on being formed in certain virtues. Why a Christian should assume that the president of a secular nation-state would be so formed – much less enjoy a certain “charism” of moral judgment – is a mystery to me. “Charism” is a theological term denoting a gift of the Holy Spirit. To apply such a term to whomever the electoral process of a secular nation-state happens to cough up does not strike me as theologically sound or practically wise.

The fundamental issue here is of much greater importance than arguments about the justice (or lack thereof) of this particular war. Weigel would have the church effectively abdicate its moral judgment in matters of war to the leaders of the nation-state. It is hard to imagine what could do greater damage to both church and nation. If the church does not have an independent process of discernment to bring the gospel to bear on matters of war and peace, then any hope that the Prince of Peace will be heard over the din of self-interest and fear will be lost. History is already littered with the wreckage caused by Christian capitulation to reasons of state.

William Cavanaugh is associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and author of Theopolitical Imagination and Torture and Eucharist.