Pope Leo XIV: Peace is built through disarmament, not nuclear weapons
Vatican Publishing House released Pope Leo XIV’s book "Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift", compiling his peace addresses. The volume opens with a previously unpublished text and will be issued in Italian with an upcoming English edition. Pope Leo XIV stresses that peace starts with personal responsibility, truth, and disarmament rather than nuclear weapons. He cites ongoing conflicts worldwide and urges daily gestures of peace to build lasting harmony.
2 months ago
Pope Leo XIV’s new anthology Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift gathers his speeches and reflections on peace since his election in 2025, emphasizing that true security comes from disarmament rather than nuclear armaments. 1
The Vatican Publishing House released the volume in Italian on 21 July 2026, with an English edition forthcoming. Alessandro Banfi edited the collection, which includes a previously unpublished introduction by the Pope and arranges the texts thematically—from diplomatic addresses to homilies for youth. 2
Leo XIV opens his foreword by recalling Christ’s greeting “Peace be with you” and stresses that peace is a gift that “did not come cheap.” He argues that nuclear weapons cannot generate peace; only their elimination can, warning that the current “race to armament” threatens humanity. 1 4
He cites the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and repeats Saint John Paul II’s description of war as an “adventure with no return.” The Pope also references Saint Paul VI’s appeal to the United Nations for a universal oath “never again war.” 1 4
Leo XIV stresses that peace begins with personal conduct—smiles, pardoned injuries, kind words—and that each person must embody the Gospel’s call to non‑violence. He quotes Saint Augustine on changing troubled times by living good lives. 1 3
The Pope highlights the 1983 incident when Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov, trusting his conscience, refused to report a false missile alarm, thereby averting a possible nuclear catastrophe. He calls this the “conscience of a single person can be worth the entire world.” 1 6
Leo XIV invokes Bob Dylan’s 1963 anti‑nuclear lyric “I hate you cause yer man‑made and man‑owned an’ man‑handled” to illustrate the moral repugnance of atomic weapons. He also cites Servants of God Dorothy Day, Blessed Floribert Bwana Chui, and Giorgio La Pira as exemplars of peace‑building through charity, honesty, and diplomacy. 4 6
Banfi explains that the Pope’s message derives its power from the Gospel and can inspire moral mobilisation even without temporal authority. He notes the Pope’s consistent emphasis on hope, the “city of God” versus the “earthly city,” and the need for believers to act as witnesses of peace. 2 3
EWTN and Catholic World Report echo the Pope’s stance, reporting his rejection of claims that he supports nuclear weapons and his criticism of the U.S.–Iran conflict. Both outlets underline the foreword’s call for global nuclear disarmament and the Pope’s appeal to world leaders to pursue peace. 4 5
Overall, the anthology presents Pope Leo XIV’s consistent theological and moral argument: lasting peace requires personal responsibility, truthful witness, and the concrete step of disarming nuclear arsenals.
Assess Catholic doctrine on disarmament versus nuclear armament
Catholic doctrine treats disarmament—especially concerning weapons of mass destruction—not as naïve idealism but as a serious moral imperative rooted in the Church’s principles for judging war and peace. At the same time, the Church acknowledges that states may have a right of lawful self-defense when war still threatens and no effective international authority exists. The core tension is therefore not “peace versus responsibility,” but whether nuclear armament and nuclear deterrence can ever be a morally adequate basis for security, given their catastrophic and indiscriminate character.
The Catechism grounds its treatment of war in neighbor-love and the moral status of civilians. It teaches that:
“Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”
This matters for nuclear armament because nuclear weapons inherently risk indiscriminate and uncontainable effects, making the moral problem not just “how to use them,” but whether their very logic is compatible with love of neighbor and the protection of civilian life. The Church explicitly highlights the danger that modern scientific weapons (including atomic weapons) can be used in ways that violate this moral boundary.
The Church does not deny that governments have responsibilities to protect their people. It states that:
“As long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.”
However, Catholic teaching also holds that accumulation of arms—including for deterrence—does not reliably produce peace and can aggravate the causes of war. The Catechism explains that the “arms race does not ensure peace,” and that spending enormous sums on ever newer weapons impedes efforts to aid needy populations and increases the danger of escalation.
The Church’s social doctrine likewise evaluates deterrence critically. It notes that the “principle of sufficiency” (each state possessing only what is necessary for legitimate defense) must be applied, and that “any excessive stockpiling” cannot be morally justified.
Several magisterial texts directly challenge the idea that nuclear deterrence is the “indispensable prerequisite” for security.
Pope Francis argues that relying on deterrence “through fear or the threat of nuclear… weapons” is inadequate because nuclear deterrence is built on a “false sense of security” and undermines trust between peoples.
He emphasizes the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences of any nuclear use—“devastating, indiscriminate and uncontainable effects, over time and space”—and insists that stability cannot be based on “the threat of mutual destruction or total annihilation.”
Pope Francis does not merely call for “risk reduction.” He states:
“the ultimate goal of the total elimination of nuclear weapons becomes both a challenge and a moral and humanitarian imperative.”
He also adds that responses should be “collective and concerted,” rooted in mutual trust and built through dialogue toward the common good.
Benedict XVI likewise argues against basing security on nuclear arms, saying that such a viewpoint is “not only baneful but also completely fallacious,” and that “in a nuclear war there would be no victors, only victims.”
Catholic doctrine proposes disarmament as a goal that must be pursued with realism (controls, verification, negotiations) and with moral seriousness (conversion of hearts and hearts’ logic—fear replaced by trust).
The Compendium teaches that Church social teaching proposes:
“general, balanced and controlled disarmament.”
It also explains that the principle of sufficiency limits arms to what is needed for legitimate defense, and that excessive stockpiling or indiscriminate trading cannot be morally justified.
For weapons of mass destruction, the Compendium says the principle of non-proliferation is intimately connected with “measures of nuclear disarmament” and with the prohibition of nuclear tests, pursued “as soon as possible” through effective international controls.
The same source states that “policies of nuclear deterrence, typical of the Cold War period, must be replaced with concrete measures of disarmament based on dialogue and multilateral negotiations.”
John XXIII’s integral disarmament is emphasized again by Pope Benedict XVI through a citation of Pacem in Terris: disarmament must be thoroughgoing, reaching “people’s very souls,” and peace must be founded not on equal supplies of armaments but on “mutual trust.”
John Paul II likewise appeals to the Council’s teaching that peace must be born of mutual trust rather than imposed through fear of weapons, and urges an end to the arms race through disarmament with “authentic and workable safeguards,” not unilateral steps.
Pope Leo XIV recognizes that progress exists, while also warning against complacency. He notes that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (in force since 2021) is “an important step,” but “risks remaining largely symbolic” because major nuclear powers have not agreed.
He also critiques the widespread belief that nuclear deterrence is indispensable, arguing that this contributes to a new arms race and the erosion of nuclear reduction agreements, including development of “miniaturized” weapons that make use seem more viable.
Putting these teachings together, the Catholic doctrinal assessment can be summarized as follows:
In short, Catholic doctrine does not merely prefer disarmament; it presents disarmament—rooted in mutual trust and non-indiscriminate protection of civilian life—as the moral trajectory for international security, while viewing nuclear armament and nuclear deterrence as profoundly unstable and morally burdened.