ROME — Pope Francis recalled the “huge tensions” facing the world during the Cold War, suggesting we are falling into the same predicament again.
In his weekly Angelus message Sunday, the pontiff recalled the beginning of the Second Vatican Council on October 11, 1962, which sought to make the Church’s message more accessible to the modern generation and led to a number of changes in the Catholic liturgy.
We should not “forget the danger of nuclear war that menaced the world right at that time,” the pope said, in reference to the Cold War and the failed U.S. Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba the year before.
“Why don’t we learn from history?” Francis asked rhetorically. “Even at that moment, there were conflicts and huge tensions, but the way of peace was chosen.”
On Friday, the pope condemned “the evils of current speculation that feed the winds of war” in reference to the arms trade, which he has repeatedly blamed for inciting global conflicts.
Francis has gone further than any of his predecessors in condemning nuclear weapons, declaring that not only the use of nuclear arms but even their possession is morally wrong.
Last January, the pope asserted that “those who possess weapons will eventually use them.”
The world’s conflicts “are exacerbated by the abundance of weapons on hand and the unscrupulousness of those who make every effort to supply them,” the pope told members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See in his annual address.
A stockpile of arms is no deterrent to a possible aggressor, the pontiff asserted, citing “history.”
“At times, we deceive ourselves into thinking that these weapons serve to dissuade potential aggressors,” he stated. “History and, sadly, even daily news reports, make it clear that this is not the case. Those who possess weapons will eventually use them.”
“When we yield to the logic of arms and distance ourselves from the practice of dialogue, we forget to our detriment that, even before causing victims and ruination, weapons can create nightmares,” he stated.
The pope went on to warn of two types of weapons in particular, namely autonomous weapon systems and nuclear arms.
Our concerns become even more real “if we consider the availability and employment of autonomous weapon systems that can have terrible and unforeseen consequences, and should be subject to the responsibility of the international community,” he argued.
“Among the weapons humanity has produced, nuclear arms are of particular concern,” he said.
“A world free of nuclear arms is possible and necessary,” he continued, adding that the Holy See “continues steadfastly to maintain that in the twenty-first century nuclear arms are an inadequate and inappropriate means of responding to security threats, and that possession of them is immoral.”