Vatican City, Mar 22, 2022 / 04:20 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Monday said that spending money on weapons is an outrage that sullies humanity and takes resources away from the things people need to live.
“Certain choices are not neutral: to allocate a large part of spending to weapons means taking it away from something else, which means continuing to take it away from those who lack the necessities. And this is an outrage: spending on weapons,” the pope told an Italian volunteer organization on March 21.
“This is serious. We need to create the awareness that continuing to spend on weapons sullies the soul, sullies the heart, sullies humanity.”
Speaking in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, he asked: “Why, then, wage war on each other over conflicts that we should resolve by talking to each other as fellow people?”
“Why not rather join our forces and resources to fight together the real battles of civilization: the fight against hunger and thirst; the fight against disease and epidemics; the fight against poverty and slavery of today. Why?”
Pope Francis noted that arms are used in wars not only in Ukraine, but also in places in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
“What is the use of committing ourselves all together, solemnly, at an international level, in campaigns against poverty, against hunger, against the degradation of the planet, if we then fall back into the old vice of war, into the old strategy of the power of armaments, which takes everything and everyone backwards?” he said.
“A war always takes you backwards, always. We go backwards. We will have to start over again.”
Francis was addressing the group Ho Avuto Sete, which is Italian for “I was thirsty,” taken from Matthew 25:35, when Jesus says: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me.” The organization helps provide access to clean drinking water to those who do not have it.
On Monday, Pope Francis also sent a message to the 9th World Water Forum, which is meeting in Dakar, Senegal, this week to discuss water access and its contribution to peace-building and development.
“Our world thirsts for peace, for this indivisible good which requires the constant effort and contribution of everyone and which is based in particular on the fulfillment of the essential and vital needs of each human person,” the pope said in the March 21 message signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
“Water security is today threatened by various factors, including pollution, conflict, climate change and the misuse of natural resources,” he said.
“Yet water is a valuable asset for peace. As a result, it cannot be considered simply as a private good, generating commercial profit and subject to the laws of the market.”
“It should also be emphasized that ‘addressing issues related to water scarcity and improving water management, especially by communities, can help create greater social cohesion and solidarity,’ to initiate processes, to build relationships.”
“In fact, water is a gift to us from God and a common heritage whose universal destination must be ensured for each generation,” he said.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Weapons are necessary and appropriate to defend and preserve integrity and sovereignty of the individual, the family, the community, and the nation.
We exist with God at our core but demons at our door. The world is not perfect and is not heaven. Both weeds and wheat grow here, and both sheep and goats feed on them. We eat and grow into one or the other. God’s will shall be done. The resurrection of justice will come when goats shall go one way and sheep another. Until then, there will be war with weapons. Say what you will.
Instead of spending money on weapons spend it on helping the poor, the hungry and the homeless throughout the entire world. For instance donate and help support international charities like the Missionaries of Charity founded by Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta serving the poorest of the poor in cities and countries across the entire world. Help another international charity like Canadian Food For Children founded by Order of Canada recipient Dr. Andrew Simone, a Harvard trained Dermatologist who was a former Treasurer for Mother Teresa’s Charity in Canada. It was at her insistence that Simone founded Canadian Food For Children serving the poor in over 22 countries. Finally the Consulata Missionaries located in over 57 different countries. These are just a few of many charities we should be supporting with our money instead buying more weapons. Weapons kill while supporting charities like the ones I mentioned in my comments helps man- kind “Build a civilization of love.”
This statement about “weapons” displays the superficial potpourri of Pontiff Francis and what his own promoters call “Team Francis.”
A – His Excellency Sorondo has already preached “the gospel” of Pontiff Francis that it is the Chinese Communist State that best exemplifies Catholic social justice in the world today.
B – And yet somehow the Chinese Communist State has sullied its soul by purchasing millions of weapons including nuclear weapons.
Such are the slogans of the “Marxist-World-Council-of-Churches” pieties of cult 2013.
Let us have Pontiff Francis preach pacifism to the Communist Chinese Partners of the Secret Accord, and when they lay down their weapons, then Team Francis can give witness to them yet again, that they most exemplify the contemporary “Krisjun” path.
(It makes one consider that “The Pillar” is onto something about the cause for concern that the CCP, having until recently owned a number pornography and hookup apps like GRNDR, have copies of all of the records of the “workers” in the Vatican city-state, etc and that this poses a problem.)