For those "peace and justice" Catholics who can't read Italian, here are a few highlights from a meeting Pope Benedict XVI held a few days ago with representatives of the Vatican to international organizations. The Pope emphasized that spiritual truth alone can be the foundation for social justice AND that the most severe injustice in the world today is abortion.
"Relations between States and within States are just in so far as they respect the truth. When, however, the truth is offended, peace is threatened and rule of law is compromised, then, as a logical consequence, injustices arise."
Also in his remarks, he expressed the sad truth that "today's gravest injustice" is the suppression of nascent life. "These injustices can adopt many faces," said the Pope. "For example, the face of disinterest or disorder, which can even go so far as to damage the structure of that founding cell of society that is the family; or perhaps the face of arrogance that can lead to abuse, silencing those without a voice or without the strength to make themselves heard, as happens in the case of today's gravest injustice, that which suppresses nascent human life."
This is the case, he said, no matter what opposition may come from others..."even when policies of States and the majority of public opinion moves in the opposite direction. Truth, indeed, draws strength from itself and not from the amount of consent it arouses."
