The 1960’s were a time of change in the Catholic Church and the church’s unwavering stances were being challenged during Vatican II. War and birth control were subjects that were being brought up and questioned in ways that the church had never previously seen. The idea that the church could change and was actually being changed by the events happening during the 1960’s was uncomfortable for some people within the church and caused great strife between leaders. The change that was occurring within and surrounding the Church had many people questioning God, his sovereignty, and even his existence. In John Shanley’s short story, “Doubt: A Parable”, Sister Aloysius begins to question her commitment to the church as well as her faith as her certainty about many things like the evilness of using secular songs in Christmas plays, and the morality of the Church were questioned by other leaders within the church. Sister Aloysius’ certainty about even just little things in life begin to be questioned by others in the church causing her to become very resistant to the change and tries to enforce what she has always known. Sister Aloysius was accustomed to Christian songs being played during Christmas performances and believed that secular songs exposed, “a pagan belief in magic,” (Shanley 29) and should not be allowed in the church. She had understood the lyrics to be heretical, but with the Church progresses not everyone had the same strong feelings towards the secular songs. It is assumed that the tradition of only using Christian song during the pageant had not been challenged and was always just understood, until Sister James wanted to have the kids sing “Frosty the Snowman”. Instead of accepting that it was merely a song, Sister Aloysius’ response to Sister James was simply, “It should be banned from the airwaves” (Shanley 29). It was obvious that Sister Aloysius did not like the secular Christmas songs, but she put no consideration into the possibility of performing the song because that was not what she had known and she was unwilling to change that certainty so instead she enforced her rule that the song would not be played. What drives Sister Aloysius to doubt the morality of the Church and ultimately the existence of God is the promotion the Father Flynn receives after she forces him out of St. Nicholas School. Sister Aloysius was so certain the Father Flynn was responsible for the sexual abuse of one of the students she was willing to lie to enforce her belief in the matter. She was so certain of everything she had done thus far, enforcing the fountain pens, the traditional Christmas songs, every decision she had made until this point when her certainty is questioned once again. After finding out that Father Flynn had been promoted in another parish she expresses, “I have doubts! I have such doubts!” (Shanely 58) She did not agree with how the church handled the accusations of Father Flynn, instead of preventing him from continuing to be priest the Church gave him a promotion at a larger school. She tried getting others on her side, but no one was willing to take her side, not even the church. When she confronted the Bishop about Father Flynn she says that, “He did not believe it to be true” (Shanely 58). This was no longer Sister Aloysius’ certainty being challenged by her peers it was the church that she had served and loved for years that began to doubt her. She could not understand the new Church and it’s new morality regarding such serious issues and it caused her to doubt the faith she had in God. Due Sister Aloysius’ certainty throughout the book regarding her charges against Father Flynn, his leaving that resulted due to Sister Aloysius’ sin of lying, and the fact that his crime was rewarded, not punished, by the Church, suggests that her “doubt” at the end of the book concerns her faith in the Church, as well as her faith in God, and not so much her doubt of Flynn's guilt. Although her beliefs in the church were strong she was willing to step outside of those boundaries in order to prove Flynn’s guilt. As she tries to get Father Flynn to confess she tells him, “I will step outside the church if that's what needs to be done, though the door should shut behind me! I will do what needs to be done, Father, if it means I'm damned to Hell!” (Shanely 54) She does not let go of her belief that Father Flynn sexually abused the boy and even believes in the allegations more than she does the boundaries of the church. She is willing to give that up because the Church has left her on her own. Not only is she willing to step out of the boundaries of the Church to try and convict Father Flynn she even steps away from God because she believes this to be more true. In the ending lines of the book Sister Aloysius tells Sister James, “In the pursuit of wrongdoing, one steps away from God” (Shanley 58). Her stepping away from God shows that she ultimately believes herself to be truer than God. Her ultimate doubt in her faith in God must be a result of her questioning of God’s goodness in suffering because the God she understood would not allow the Church to continue its cover-up of the sexual abuses the way it did. In the end Sister Aloysius is left in a place of uncertainty and doubt because what she held to be the most certain had failed her and she became more certain in Father Flynn’s guilt than she did in her own Church and in God. In the book of James there is a warning to those who doubt, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:5-6). Sister Aloysius did not go to God to seek wisdom or discernment regarding her beliefs that Father Flynn had an inappropriate relationship with Donald Muller and that caused her to be as unsettled as the waves in the sea and she ultimately steps away from the church and from God.