The Response to the Psalm today expresses very clearly the parallelism of peace and justice. The verse is a succinct summary of the whole teaching of the Psalm. In view of the development of the Church's social teaching especially at Vatican II and in Church documents since then, this Biblical affirmation of the relationship, almost the identity, of justice and peace is very consoling while at the same time strongly imperative for all who are truly concerned with a just world in which all of us, children of God, can live in peace and harmony, as God intended at creation. Since the time of Saint Augustine, Catholic social teaching has insisted that a good human society enjoys a "tranquillity of order", i.e. a social order in which all can live in harmony.

In his encyclical Pacem in terris (Peace on Earth 1963], Pope John XXIII stated rather bluntly that "peace is only an empty word if it does not rest upon that order which [....] is founded on truth, built up on justice, nurtured and animated by charity, and brought into effect under the auspices of freedom." Pope Paul VI went further when he identified peace and justice: "justice is the new name for peace."