“We pray for peace. War is always a defeat! And please, let us also pray for the conversion of the hearts of the weapons manufacturers, because with their product they help to kill.” Thus Pope Francis at the audience last January 15th. Clear words, as always. We remember, among the many interventions, the homily of 13 September 2014 at the Redipuglia Shrine “Even today there are many victims… How is this possible? It is possible because even today behind the scenes there are interests, geopolitical plans, greed for money and power, there is the arms industry, which seems to be so important!”. The Pope’s invitation is to a prayer for the conversion of hearts. It’s not about criminalizing, pointing fingers, condemning, but about reading reality objectively. To all question ourselves with a serious examination of conscience in the face of the great increase in weapons, military spending (2,243 billion in the world in ’23) and see our own involvements and responsibilities. A few months ago, Minister Crosetto stated that “the arms industries are experiencing the best period in recent years, at the moment the demand is much higher than the supply”. We know that there are those who ask to invest 5% of GDP in weapons. And the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, a few days ago asked the European Parliament to cut spending on healthcare and pensions and increase spending on weapons! The rampant rhetoric of war blinds us and does not allow us to grasp the great interests linked to weapons. The Pope questions his conscience. There is an objective fact: weapons kill. And we cannot hide behind the needs of defense and security, nor behind the fact that the arms industries create jobs. Firstly: if it is true that in the arms sector there are jobs to be safeguarded, it is equally true that, for the same investments, jobs in the arms production are far fewer than in other sectors. It’s about choice. Secondly: production cannot be justified just because it offers earnings and jobs.
An ethical evaluation is necessary, indispensable, to avoid entering the spiral of those who still maintain today “if you want peace, prepare for war”. It’s a reality that should worry us all. If we must pray “for the conversion of the hearts of the arms manufacturers”, we cannot hide the responsibilities of everyone in this business of death. We must ask ourselves: in which bank do we deposit our money? Few or many, it doesn’t matter. Many banks are involved in arms exports, and we are complicit in this. This is why in the Jubilee year of 2000 the Campaign to pressure armed banks was born (www.banchearmate.org). You are invited to write to your bank to ask for an account of the relationships with the production and sale of weapons, and possibly also close the account. It is a concrete gesture of conversion. And in the next few weeks the amendment to law 185/90 which regulates the export of weapons will be discussed in Parliament. If this amendment passes, we will no longer know almost anything about the sale of Italian weapons, which are prohibited to countries at war or which violate human rights. And we will no longer have the possibility of knowing the involvement of the Banks. A big favor to the lobby of the arms manufacturers, the merchants of death. In the year of the Jubilee, an open, frank and sincere reflection on these issues should also be made within the Church. To give substance to the Jubilee of Hope and not to let Pope Francis’ words fall on deaf ears.
There are, today as yesterday, also many testimonies of those who say ‘no’ to the production of weapons. Towards the end of the ’80s, there was a great deal of groundwork to arrive at law 185 of ’90, with the choices of the objectors to the production of weapons Elio Pagani and Marco Tamborini, who died at the end of December ’24. But also some workers at the port of Genoa, who for years have refused to load and unload weapons on ships that pass through Genoa and then supply weapons to Saudi Arabia or Israel. Or the RWM Reconversion Committee for peace and sustainable work, in Sulcis, Sardinia, with some who refused to go to work in the RWM plant that produces bombs. These are just some examples of how to oppose the logic of war and seek a different path for reconversion and occupation. Pope Francis, in the message for the World Day of Peace on January 1st, writes “let’s use at least a fixed percentage of the money used in armaments to set up a world fund that will definitively eliminate hunger”. It’s about choosing, because “evil needs accomplices to win.”
