Critics of religion often see it as an obstacle to political justice, as “opium for the people” that prevents them from rebelling against unjust exploitation, or as a system of oppression in itself. But great religious thinkers have seen religion as being at the heart of justice, including in the political realm. Imam Khomeini, writing to the leader of the Soviet Union asked rhetorically, “Is the religion that seeks the administration of justice in the world and man’s freedom from material and spiritual shackles, the opium of the people?” (In Catholic Social Teaching the link between religion (as the justice owed to God) and political justice (as what is owed to our fellow men) is well established. As Pope Leo XIII wrote “As soon as the State refuses to give to God what belongs to God, by a necessary consequence it refuses to give to citizens that to which, as men, they have a right.” The 2024 ViQo Circle Conference will illuminate the theme of justice from the perspective of Shi’a Islam and Catholic Christianity.