FRED DE SAM LAZARO, guest anchor: Now, the priest with pop-star fame. It's wasn't his duties as a parish priest that made Liam Lawton a household name in Ireland. It was his music.

During his recent tour in the U.S., Judy Valente caught up with him in Chicago.

JUDY VALENTE: Liam Lawton grew up in a family immersed in music, and where Gaelic -- the Irish language -- was spoken. He opened this concert in Chicago with a song in Gaelic dating back to the 14th century, when it was sung during Holy Week.

Father LIAM LAWTON: The basis of the Irish language is very much a basis on spirituality. There are many words which really refer to God and to the heavens or to a blessing.

VALENTE: He wrote his first collection of music in Gaelic nearly 20 years ago.

Fr. LAWTON: It brought back into the liturgy a sense of mystery, a sense of mystique that perhaps the Latin had done earlier on. But I believe that Irish music could do also.

VALENTE: Lawton, here saying Mass during his tour of the U.S., had all but stopped writing music after his ordination.

Fr. LAWTON: The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ…

VALENTE: As a parish priest in Ireland, serving as chaplain at a school, a nursing home, and a psychiatric hospital, he didn't feel he should be creating music. And yet…

Fr. LAWTON: I was beginning to feel myself imploding because there wasn't a creative force in my life, and I wanted in some way to be more creative, and I remember playing a piece of music. And it was John Michael Talbot's "Magnificat." I'd always loved his voice and his -- I find his music very prayerful. And I was sitting there. I started crying and I couldn't stop. I'm crying and crying and crying. I think I was crying for a loss of creativity in my own life, but also for a feeling of helplessness.

VALENTE: Helpless to heal the suffering people he encountered in his ministry.

Fr. LAWTON: And then it suddenly struck me that if somebody like John Michael Talbot could write music that would touch my life and other people's lives, surely I could try to do the same.

VALENTE: Lawton began composing and performing. He recalls his first public concert.

Fr. LAWTON: There was an old man sitting in the audience. He started crying, and he was crying the whole way through the performance. So when it was over I made it my business to go to him. He said whatever your music did, but it touched, you know, my psyche. And he said, "I haven't been able to cry for years."

And so I realized then that, you know, there is in some way a ministry of healing. A ministry of -- because music is a divine gift, and nobody can persuade me otherwise.

MARY EVERS: I find his voice so very comforting.

VALENTE: Mary Evers is the former director of liturgy at Old St. Patrick's Church in Chicago.

Ms. EVERS: Let's face it. Through the rough, struggles of our daily living there are times we need to hear that voice. We need to hear it coming toward us to collect us, and we need to hear it within ourselves.

VALENTE: Within a few years, Lawton found himself in the uncomfortable position of being both priest and pop star in Ireland.

Fr. LAWTON: In the beginning I found myself being very isolated, not being fish or fowl, where do it -- you know, being in the middle. And sometimes the world, the clerical world not understanding me, and then the people in the secular world not understanding me as well.

For me, it's all bound up. This is me as one person, and that Liam the singer is drawing his inspiration from Liam the priest.

Ms. EVERS: It's more we who look at that situation and say, "Well, is he a priest or not?" And to that I'd have to say there are many ways to be priestly, and serving God's people with the music is a very priestly gift.

VALENTE: Lawton lives in a parish house, on the pay of a parish priest, the equivalent of about $20,000 a year.

Proceeds from concerts go to his musicians -- to music projects and to charities. He expresses little interest in money, and he even appears somewhat shy on stage.

Fr. LAWTON: If I could perform and just disappear then, I would do that. I live beside a contemplative monastery, and sometimes I really envy the sisters who are there, you know, because while I love performing, I love writing, and I love the whole creative side of it, after that I just want to get away.

VALENTE: Lawton is perhaps best known for music he wrote after the sudden, tragic death of an uncle who for years had been his musical mentor.

Fr. LAWTON (to audience): One day after he died I was really disinterested in music. I didn't want to sing or play again. This woman sent me a card. It was just a blank card with two lines across the front. It said, "When the dark clouds veil the sky, I am by your side."

VALENTE: His song "The Cloud's Veil" was among those chosen for a memorial service following the attacks of Sept 11.

Fr. LAWTON: I think melody is a gift. I'm told I have a gift of melody. Everybody has been blessed with some gift, and I think that in those gifts, I think we in some way can make the Kingdom present. My gifts, I hope, are my music and for my writing in some way, in using those that I can bring consolation, a hope, or just calm and peace to people.

VALENTE: He wants his music not only to console but to inspire prayer. Mary Evers:

Ms. EVERS: It acknowledges the pain, but it also lifts up and puts a place of hope out before us to strive for. We need music in our church that's going to move us and challenge us and give us hope, and that's the priestliness of Liam.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, this is Judy Valente in Chicago.