VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI rebuked modern-day atheism for bringing untold cruelty and suffering to a world seeking justice, exhorting Roman Catholics to embrace instead the Christian message of hope.

"We must do all we can to overcome suffering, but to banish it from the world is not in our power," Benedict wrote in the second encyclical of his papacy. "Only God is able to do this."

The pope also critically questioned modern Christianity, saying its focus on individual salvation had ignored Jesus' message that true Christian hope involves salvation for all.

"Saved by Hope" is an exploration of hope in the Christian sense: that in the suffering and misery of daily life, Christianity provides the faithful with a "journey of hope" to the Kingdom of God.

"Christianity did not bring a message of social revolution like that of the ill-fated Spartacus, whose struggle led to so much bloodshed. Jesus was not Spartacus, he was not engaged in a fight for political liberation," the pope wrote.