Cardinal Parolin: We need more voices calling for peace

“It is a utopia to think that peace is guaranteed by weapons and by balances imposed by the strongest, rather than by international agreements.” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, reflects on the crises and wars inflaming the world in an interview with “Dialoghi,” the cultural quarterly of Italian Catholic Action.

His words also contain a strong condemnation of rearmament.

“We firmly believe that arsenals must be emptied, starting with nuclear ones.” He also recalls the failure to renew agreements for the progressive reduction of atomic weapons, which, the Cardinal emphasizes, has “given even freer rein to the construction of deadly instruments capable of annihilating life on earth.”

“There is a need for more voices for peace, more voices against the madness of the arms race, more voices,” he urges, “raised in favor of our poorest brothers and sisters, more voices and more proposals — I am thinking, for example, of the world of Catholic universities — for new economic models inspired by justice and care for the weakest, rather than by the idolatry of money.”