Sinead O’Connor has mellowed out on her latest music release, “Theology,” her first since declaring that she’d quit the business in 2003, and her first album with original songs in ten years.

“Theology” is a religious-themed double album with one CD featuring acoustic versions of songs, most based on passages from the Old Testament, and the other with those same tracks performed with a full band. There are three covers on the album of songs from Curtis Mayfield, Boney M and hooray – a musical.

O’Connor has changed a lot since the infamous incident on Saturday Night Live in 1992 in which she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II. In a recent interview with Beliefnet, she speaks candidly about her religion. She says she still considers herself a Catholic, but that she’s inspired by other religions, including the Rastafari movement, Hinduism and Judaism.

When asked about how her album is “an attempt to create peace in time of war,” O’Connor answers:

The world has become a very frightened and frightening place. The existence of war is proof of the absolute lack of contact with God, and that is something I see as having got a lot worse. We’re all affected by what happened on Sept. 11 because all over the world there are countries at risk because of involvement in the war. In the case of the British people and the American people, they can’t walk down the street without being frightened, with very good reason, that something dreadful might happen…

The people of any country should be asked and polled whether that is what they want, because they’re going to be at risk. That’s what has happened since Sept. 11–people all over the world have been put into a lot of danger by both sides, by Islam and by Christianity. I suppose musically that’s what I’m saying– that behaving like that, they’ve both misrepresented their God.

A Christian is supposed to say “What would Jesus do?” Jesus wouldn’t be killing anyone and sending bombs on anyone. I do understand, of course, that people have to be protected. But while protection is going on, at the same time there should be Christian negotiations going on to see how can these things be fixed with love.

I suppose all of us are complicit in what’s happening if we are doing nothing at all about it. All I can do is make records, and I hope this record would make someone think that perhaps God is not an angry, punishing, warmaking God and is in fact a gentle and compassionate God who actually is upset at the loss of us.

O’Connor says it’s time for a comeback because she’s tired of being a full time mom. She has four children by different fathers that range in age from 6 months to 20 years old. Her 11 year-old daughter, Rowan, didn’t even know she was a musician.

When asked what she thinks of the current Pope Benedict XVI, she says “I don’t know anything about him, to be honest. I actually couldn’t tell you anything about him. I don’t watch television because I’ve got four kids and they have the TV on the the whole time watching kiddie programs until 9 o’clock at night, so I don’t get to see much of the world.”

Gigwise says that O’Connor’s album features her strong vocals, but “lacks her usual ache and bite and zip.” It seems that O’Connor’s music has just evolved with her, and is something one might expect from a spiritual mother of four rather than the angry O’Connor of 15 years ago.

You can hear samples of tracks from her new album on Amazon.com

Here she is signing copies of “Theology” at Borders book store in Columbus Circle, New York City. Thanks to WENN for these photos.