O'Connor’s version of Bob Marley’s song “War” is best remembered now for what she did on the October 3, 1992 Saturday Night Live show. She altered the wording of the sixth and seventh verses of the song to say,

Until the ignoble and unhappy regime which holds all of us through child abuse / yaa / child abuse / yaa / subhuman bondage / has been toppled / utterly destroyed.

Until that day there is no continent that will know peace/ Children, children / Fight / We find it necessary / We know we will win /
We have confidence in the victory of good over evil

As she finished singing the final word, “evil”, O'Connor ripped up a picture of then-Pope John Paul II. Saying, “Fight the real enemy”, she then threw the pieces of the photo toward the camera. She did this as a protest against Pope John Paul II’s role in the ongoing cover-up of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. Although this act of protest garnered much controversy and condemnation, O'Connor has always defended her actions as a protest against an institutional covering up child abuse. As a sufferer of childhood abuse herself, she felt particularly drawn to this act of protest.

In an interview with Viddyms the day after her performance, the interviewer Tony Lindo said that, “And those of us who listen to Reggae music and are interested in the Rastafari culture, know there are some similarities in what she’s been saying about the pope and what we’ve known and been saying for a long time.”