By Peter J. Smith
ROME, November 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – 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.
Fr. Frank Pavone of the Priests for Life told LifeSiteNews.com that the reason the West has seen so many embrace what Benedict called the “substitute for religion” is because Christianity has become diluted into more of an ethical code of “virtues” or “values” rather than “following and obeying [Jesus Christ]”.
“We end up seeing our religion as ‘promoting values’ or ‘ethics’ rather than promoting a real, personal and community relationship with Jesus Christ,” said Fr. Pavone. When, however, everything is seen in the light of that relationship, then we cannot exclude something as basic as respect for the right to life – because it all flows from Christ’s dominion over us, over our freedom and our choices.”
Judie Brown, President of American Life League, commented to LifeSiteNews.com, “The Pope is very courageous to consistently point this out. If every bishop in the United States and around the world did the very same thing thundering the message over and over again from the pulpits of the churches of this country I think we’d see some change.”
“When a nation, country, or society looses its respect for the dignity of the human person, whose life begins at conception, it’s not a far stretch to say that that same society will never be at peace,” Judie Brown told LifeSiteNews.com citing the loss of respect for life in America and all over the world has brought a concomitant increase in violence. “It will never be able to provide justice for any member of society and it certainly will become more and more steeped in violence of every kind.”