A lot of the rest of this 1843 "Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" gives us an idea of where Marx was going with the passage that Charles quotes:
>The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is
the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their
illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a
condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is,
therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which
religion is the halo.
>Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order
that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or
consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the
living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he
will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded
his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around
himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which
revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
>It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth
has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the
immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to
unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of
human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of
Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion
into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the
criticism of politics. < [emphasis suppressed]
he's saying that the critique of religion is simply a weak version of what's really needed, i.e., a critique of social reality.
-- Jim Devine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.