“By nursing our admiration for our military’s virtues, President Obama suggests, we can transform our beleaguered democracy into a more cohesive and mission-focused political community.”

"We ought to pray here every day until Congress proves worthy of the calling of the nation to govern," said Rev. Michael Livingston, director of the National Council of Churches poverty initiative, at a gathering of religious leaders on Capitol Hill.

As the debate over the federal budget continues in Washington, religious leaders such as Jim Wallis of Sojourners are urging members of both parties to protect the poor. "A budget is a moral document," he says, "and the common good has to outweigh ideological political battles in this town."

With debt, deficits, and budgets dominating our politics, more questions are being raised about underlying moral choices and issues. “This should be an argument about outcomes,” says former Bush White House speech writer Michael Gerson, “what is best for the justice and decency of a society.”

We review some of the week's leading religion news stories, from deadly riots in Afghanistan over the burning of a Quran at a Florida church to the morality of the budget to a church-state decision from the Supreme Court.

"As Muslim societies wrestle with how to treat religious minorities, let them look to our nation," said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick this week in his congressional testimony on protecting the civil rights of American Muslims. Watch excerpts from the hearing.

An interfaith coalition is launching a prayer and fasting campaign to protect federal funding for programs that help the poor.

"There are a great many people invested in supporting American Muslims as part of the American community and interfaith dialogue," says Syracuse University religion and media professor Gustav Niebuhr.

Watch excerpts from the March 10 House Committee on Homeland Security hearing and from a news conference held by religious leaders.

The dean of Yale Divinity School reflects on Lent, poverty, public policy debates, and the moral obligations of people of faith.