I think we all do it in one way or another: We get up in the morning and start our day by putting our experiences, the decisions that we face, and just about everything in our lives into isolated compartments that help us be efficient, or sometimes just to cope. We remove from our mind everything we learned about nutrition as we gulp down a cup of coffee and rush out the door.

While we work or take care of our families, we open and close little doors in our minds with great facility; we concentrate on writing a report and unfortunately close the door that would have reminded us of our best friend's birthday; we get stuck in traffic and quickly remove from our minds everything we ever learned about civility and kindness; we read the newspaper or listen to the news and get to a point where we can't even hear anything anymore, there's too much wrong with the world --- we close that compartment, too.

The modern world fosters and supports this separating and isolating of our life. We drive gas-guzzling SUVs yet belong to ecological groups; we barely speak to our parents yet believe ourselves the best parents ever; and --- here's the one I need to talk about today --- we call ourselves Christians and conveniently close the door that says we must love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves.

So here's a question about Christian people who would defend an unborn child's life vehemently, who rightly think that faith has a place in our national discourse, who believe that Christianity does indeed contain within it the truth that will set us all free: Why do these same people feel okay about turning their back on those who are most helpless among us?

I am talking specifically about the disconnect I see, hear and read between people's professed Christianity and their ability to stand against efforts which would stop wars and end militarism, which would provide safety nets and human dignity to immigrants, and which would once and for all end the death penalty. Is this a result of efficient compartmentalizing? Why do we think this is okay?

There's one passage in Scripture which is cited often when we face questions which seem to try to merge the compartments of church and government, belief and policy --- Matthew 22:15-22. And it is often quoted to reinforce compartmentalizing; I say it's actually about the opposite.

First, to set it in context, the Pharisees are out to entrap Jesus; they want him to say something that will get him in trouble with the government authorities, this is not an innocent question. When they ask him if it is "lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not," they want him to flat out say "no," they want him to incriminate himself. These people want Jesus behind bars.

But Jesus is smarter than them and asks whose image is on the coin that will be used to pay the tax? He then answers them with the famous words, "Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."

My question is, as we look at the world as believing Catholics, do we see anything, anything at all, that belongs to Caesar? Doesn't it all belong to God?

"Caesar" or his equivalent --- the local, state, federal and foreign government --- has nothing. Nothing belongs to Caesar. I think Jesus is saying, carefully but forcefully, that everything is God's and all our allegiances belong to God. Caesar's face on the coin would have been idolatry to a Jew like Jesus, an example of setting someone or something up as God who is not.

So, back to Jesus saying "give Caesar what is Caesar's." Does human life belong to Caesar to dispose of as he pleases in war, capital punishment, inhuman immigration laws, lack of healthcare, poverty and other life-threatening conditions? Or is all life God's? If it is God's, then isn't it our Christian duty to not compartmentalize our belief of this behind a door when government tries to tell us otherwise? If we cannot condone abortion, is this not because we truly believe that human dignity is given us by God at conception?

When does human dignity disappear? Does it disappear when a desperate mother crosses a border "illegally" to be able to feed her children? Does humanity disappear when a senior citizen cannot afford their medicines? Do we not call the young men and women at war "troops" so we can forget they are human beings whose lives and dignity is being destroyed?

Is it not our responsibility to question laws which are immoral and harmful, rather than quote those very laws to each other to justify the wrongful actions of a government? Governments are given the right to govern in trust, a trust that comes from the community, and that can and should be revoked when it is contrary to the good of the community.

We have a moral duty, which is often invoked by the church, to dissent, confront and denounce government policies which destroy and demean human life. If we do not, we are complicit in the pain and suffering these "laws" create. We Catholics have a history in the United States of being squarely centered on the Gospel and of crossing "ideological" lines others dare not cross. We have a history of not compartmentalizing, we can be both pro-life and feminists, we can be patriots who believe in the promise of freedom and at the same time decry war, we can want a prosperous land without ever allowing that prosperity to be built on the backs of the disenfranchised undocumented workers among us.

I suppose what I most hope for is that we don't allow the culture to compartmentalize us away behind a door, to lump us in with a group the media has conveniently labeled "Christians," many of whom use the name while roundly giving to Caesar many, many, things that do not belong to him. All is God's, the rest is given in trust, and when we speak up against unjust laws, we are reminding everyone in imitation of Christ that Caesar is not God.

Cecilia González-Andrieu writes from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Her column will return Oct. 22.