The Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations stressed at a UN General Assembly in New York this week that the Holy See holds that nuclear weapons must be eliminated, especially in light of resurging rhetoric threatening their use.
“The Holy See affirms its unwavering conviction that efforts to control, limit, reduce, and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons are not an unrealistic prospect, but a possibility and an urgent moral imperative,” Archbishop Gabriele Caccia said Oct. 21 at the First Committee of the 80th Session of the UN’s General Assembly, according to Vatican News.
“Peace cannot be built on the threat of total destruction,” Archbishop Caccia said, “or on the illusion that stability can emerge from mutual potential annihilation, as this is both morally indefensible and strategically unsustainable.”
In the past several months, the Holy See has repeatedly condemned nuclear weaponry. In June, Pope Leo XIV urged international leaders to reject “the temptation to have recourse to powerful and sophisticated weapons,” as CatholicVote reported.
At the Oct. 21 meeting, Archbishop Caccia called on all “nuclear-armed States” to work toward negotiations “in good faith with the aim of reducing and ultimately eliminating their stockpiles,” according to Vatican News.
Archbishop Caccia said the suffering the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings caused is “a sobering and enduring reminder of the catastrophic potential of these weapons” and a reminder of the “shared responsibility to prevent such tragedies from happening again.”
In August Pope Leo issued a message for the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki expressing closeness to survivors and calling again for laying down nuclear arms.
“Indeed, true peace demands the courageous laying down of weapons — especially those with the power to cause an indescribable catastrophe,” Pope Leo said. “Nuclear arms offend our shared humanity and also betray the dignity of creation, whose harmony we are called to safeguard.”