Pope Benedict: "The Quest for Justice and Peace Without Respect for Life is Only a 'Substitute for Religion.' "

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The Church these days seems to be divided between the "horizontal" Catholic Communities whose Gospel concentrates on the "Peace and Justice" mission of the Church as preached in the New Testament and the "vertical", more liturgically based Catholic parishes whose message is the worship of God in the Holy Trinity using the assistance of the Blessed Mother, the Saints and traditional devotions and prayers.

Both of these are valid and necessary paths for attaining our ultimate salvation with Jesus Christ in Heaven.

Pope Benedict XVI warned that the quest for peace and social justice becomes a "substitute for religion" for many people when the sanctity of human life is excluded. The Pope told the Swiss Bishops on their ad limina visit to Rome that the Church must exert itself to ensuring the themes of peace, justice, and respect for the environment are "inseparably united back to the moral teaching of the Church's defense for life."
"Modern society is not simply without morality, but it has, so to speak, 'discovered' and professes a part of morality", the Pope told the Swiss bishops. "These are the great themes of peace, non-violence, justice for all, concern for the poor, and respect for creation."
However, the Pope warned that these "great moral themes" have "become an ethical complex that, precisely as a political force, has great power and constitutes for many the substitute for religion, or its successor."
"It is only if human life is respected from conception to death that the ethics of peace is also possible and credible," concluded the Pope. "It is only then that non-violence can express itself in every direction; only then that we truly welcome creation, and only then that we can arrive at true justice."
The words of Benedict strike directly at the heart of liberal Christian theology, where the rejection of the Church's moral teaching has manifested itself in a sort of "anti-morality" that attempts to profess concern for peace, justice, and the natural way, but rejects the dignity of human life from conception to natural death by embracing anti-life teachings. [...Snip] LifeSiteNews.com