Photographs of human suffering inundate everyday life in the United States. The camera lens brings the human gaze into the intimate anguish of state sponsored torture and “natural disaster.” This essay argues that photographs of suffering in contemporary culture present a nexus of ethical and moral issues. These issues arise from how photographs represent suffering “others” and how these images inform collective response to human anguish. This essay interrogates this intersection through the lens of Christian ethics' root metaphor of imago Dei. First, the essay explores the power and privilege that are invisible in the act of gazing upon a photograph of human suffering. Second, Kevin Carter's 1994 Pulitzer Prize winning photo of a Sudanese girl-child is deconstructed through the use of visual cultural studies. This analysis illustrates that photographs are not a literal depiction of suffering but rather a cultural representation which deeply condition the knowledge of human suffering. Finally, the essay argues that the photo is an invitation for the viewer to become an agent, not a spectator whose morality is realized in the sociality of imago Dei in suffering.

Martin Buber (1878–1965) stands among the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century. While many studies have attempted to summarize the scope of Buber's writings, here I will highlight some key implications of Buber's basic insight that there exists a deeply reciprocal bond between genuine interhuman dialogue and the divine-human relationship. Buber characterized authentic dialogue as sacramental, and he suggested that it included four elemental aspects: turning, addressing, listening, and responding. Every genuine dialogue opens out toward transcendence insofar as God's presence can be glimpsed as “absolute Person,” can be tasted as the spirit of elemental togetherness. The fundamental result of engaging in sacramental dialogue, both with others and with God, both in public discourse and private prayer, is the renewal of the entire person. As Buber repeatedly described it, to become who we are created to be—dialogical partners with God—it is the responsibility of every person to participate in God's creative, revealing, and redemptive presence in that part of the world where we stand.

In a series of recent articles and books, the Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh has leveled a profound challenge to the modern state. He critiques its pretentions to be a savior and to provide social cohesion. He proposes that the church should provide resistance to, and even be an alternative to, the modern state. While Cavanaugh draws creative insights from Augustine's political thought, he misuses that thought in ways that dismiss the positive goods provided by the government. Cavanaugh also makes a positive contribution to Catholic social ethics by employing “the social imaginary” to describe the modern state, but overemphasizes the states historical distinctiveness, downplaying what it has in common with earlier forms of political community, namely the pursuit of bodily well-being and social organization.

There is increasing pressure on religious thinkers and leaders to construct theologies thoroughly grounded in the particularities of a faith tradition but truly appreciative of religious pluralism. This essay argues that a significant contribution towards articulating a Roman Catholic theology of religious diversity can be advanced by explicitly integrating developments in pneumatology and sacramental theology. Pneumatology has obvious pluralistic implications insofar as Catholic theologians and the magisterium itself have emphasized the universal presence of the Holy Spirit. The sacramental tradition is more ambivalent. On the one hand, the sacramental principle and sacramental nature of human existence would seem to endorse the authenticity of religious pluralism. On the other hand, sacramental theology in the West has historically been shaped by a Christomonism which necessarily tends toward exclusivism. This tendency can be overcome by understanding sacraments in light of a Spirit Christology from below.