Barbarism With Better Software: Pope Leo Warns of the AI Future

Joshua Scheer,  May 26, 2026 , https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/26/barbarism-with-better-software-pope-leo-warns-of-the-ai-future/

Pope Leo XIV is warning that artificial intelligence, if left in the hands of profit-hungry corporations and unaccountable tech oligarchs, could unleash a “social calamity” by replacing human work. And now even the markets are beginning to price in the fear. Prediction traders on Kalshi see a 60% chance that U.S. unemployment crosses 8% before 2030, while also betting that AI may already be the leading cause of job cuts this month.

With the Pope writing “Work remains a fundamental dimension of the human experience, for not only is it a means of sustenance, but it is also a context for expression, relationships and contributing to the community,” … A society that guarantees employment to only a small fraction of the population, despite having a high level of technical development, risks exposing many to forced inactivity, a lack of responsibility and the absence of daily tasks and stimuli, resulting in human and cultural impoverishment.”

Tolkien, Gandalf and the Fight Over Humanity in the Age of AI

In one of the encyclical’s most striking moments, Pope Leo invokes the spirit of J.R.R. Tolkien while calling for humanity to “disarm” artificial intelligence and resist technological domination. Without directly naming Gandalf, Leo references a passage from one of Tolkien’s novels that reflects a central moral theme running through The Lord of the Rings: ordinary people confronting immense forces of power and corruption not by controlling the world, but by defending what is human within it.The passage speaks to the responsibility of people to care for “the fields that we know,” preserving a livable future for those who come after us rather than seeking mastery over all things.

The reference is notable not only because it is believed to be the first major incorporation of Tolkien into a high-level Vatican doctrinal document, but because it reveals the philosophical core of Leo’s warning about AI. Like Tolkien, the Pope appears deeply concerned with the dehumanizing effects of technological power when detached from morality, community and human dignity.

Rather than treating technology as destiny, Leo frames the struggle over AI as a profoundly human and ethical question: whether society will allow machines, corporations and systems of profit to dominate human life — or whether people can still reclaim technology for the common good.

What is striking is not that the Vatican is sounding the alarm. It is that Wall Street, usually eager to celebrate every job-killing “innovation” as efficiency, appears to share the anxiety. The same financial class that cheers automation when it boosts margins is now wagering on the social wreckage it may leave behind.

Pope Leo XIV vs. the AI Oligarchy

Leo’s warning cuts directly through Silicon Valley’s favorite lie: that technology is automatically progress. Work, he argues, is not merely a paycheck. It is dignity, community, purpose and participation in society. A world where machines enrich the few while millions are pushed into “forced inactivity” is not advanced. It is barbarism with better software.

The AI revolution is being sold as liberation. But without democratic control, labor protections and a moral economy, it risks becoming the most sophisticated union-busting machine ever built — a system that turns human beings into obsolete costs while calling the wreckage innovation.

The high priests of the digital economy are beginning to admit what workers have feared for years: artificial intelligence is not simply another technological innovation. It is a mechanism for social restructuring on a scale capable of hollowing out entire societies while concentrating unprecedented power into the hands of a tiny technological elite.

Now, in an extraordinary moment that reveals just how deep the anxiety has become, Pope Leo XIV has entered the fight.

In his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, Leo issued a direct moral indictment of the AI economy now being constructed by Silicon Valley and Wall Street. He warned that mass unemployment caused by automation could produce “social calamity,” condemning an economic order that treats human beings as disposable inputs in the pursuit of profit.

“The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs,” Leo wrote, arguing that the human person “is an end, not a means.”

The remarkable thing is not simply that the Pope is saying this. It is that the financial markets appear to agree.

On prediction platform Kalshi, traders now place a 60% chance that U.S. unemployment rises above 8% before 2030, with nearly even odds it surpasses 9%. Those are recession-level numbers — the kind associated historically with economic collapse, mass foreclosures and social instability. Yet this time the fear is not merely financial panic. It is technological displacement.

The same corporate class that spent the last decade promising AI would “augment” workers is now openly discussing which sectors can be eliminated first.

Customer service. Journalism. Translation. Design. Coding. Accounting. Legal research. Teaching assistance. Medical diagnostics. Administrative work. Truck driving. Retail logistics. The language has become chillingly clinical: “labor optimization,” “efficiency gains,” “redundancy reduction.” Human lives reduced to balance-sheet obstacles.

Silicon Valley presents this process as inevitable — a law of nature rather than a political choice. But Leo’s encyclical rejects that mythology outright. Technology, he argues, is not neutral when it is controlled by systems organized around extraction and domination.

The Pope’s critique goes far beyond unemployment statistics. He warns that AI is creating a new form of digital colonialism in which data itself becomes the raw material of empire. Entire populations, he writes, are being transformed into “rare earths of power” — mined not for minerals but for behavioral information, biometric profiles, consumption patterns and predictive intelligence.

A handful of corporations now possess more behavioral information about humanity than any government in history. They monitor speech, movement, emotion, consumption and political behavior at planetary scale. AI supercharges that power by transforming raw data into predictive control systems — systems capable not merely of understanding populations, but manipulating them.

And as wealth concentrates upward, the social contract below begins to collapse.

Leo warns that a society where only a small fraction of people maintain meaningful employment — despite immense technological abundance — risks “human and cultural impoverishment.” Work, he insists, is not simply economic survival. It is participation in human life itself: purpose, responsibility, relationships and community.

This is precisely what Silicon Valley’s utopian rhetoric ignores.

For decades, tech billionaires promised automation would liberate humanity from drudgery. Instead, millions find themselves trapped in algorithmic management systems, precarious gig work, surveillance workplaces and endless digital dependency. Productivity exploded while wages stagnated. Corporate profits soared while social bonds disintegrated.

AI threatens to accelerate this process to catastrophic speed.

Even some within the industry appear unnerved by what they are building. Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, appearing beside Pope Leo at the Vatican, admitted there is “a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at very large scale.” He acknowledged that no mechanism currently exists to distribute the gains globally or prevent mass social devastation.

That admission alone should shatter the fantasy that the architects of AI possess a coherent plan for humanity’s future.

Because the truth is increasingly obvious: the market has no moral framework for handling technological power of this magnitude.

Capital rewards efficiency, not justice.
Profit, not dignity.
Extraction, not community.

If replacing millions of workers with algorithms increases shareholder returns, the system treats that outcome as success — regardless of the social consequences. Entire regions can collapse into unemployment while stock valuations soar.

This is why Leo’s intervention matters.

He is not merely criticizing technology. He is challenging the economic religion surrounding it.

The modern AI boom rests on an almost theological belief that technological progress is inherently good, that innovation justifies itself, and that those who question the social costs are irrational enemies of the future. Silicon Valley speaks of AI in messianic terms: salvation through computation, transcendence through automation, immortality through machines.

But Leo offers a radically different vision. Human beings are not inefficient machines to be optimized away. Society cannot survive if millions are stripped not only of income, but of meaning and social participation itself.

The danger is not simply that AI becomes powerful.

The danger is that it becomes powerful inside an economic system already defined by staggering inequality, democratic decay and corporate domination.

Under those conditions, automation does not liberate workers.
It liberates corporations from workers.

And unless democratic control over technology emerges soon, the future now being constructed may look less like liberation than a technologically sophisticated form of mass abandonment — a world where unprecedented wealth and productivity coexist beside social despair, permanent unemployment and the slow erosion of human dignity itself.

You can read Leo’s words here:

ENCYCLICAL LETTER
MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS
OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE LEO XIV
ON SAFEGUARDING THE HUMAN PERSON
IN THE TIME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

May 29, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

How do you justify a war?

27 May 2026 , Michael Taylor, AIM Extra, https://theaimn.net/how-do-you-justify-a-war/

There comes a point when the language of war stops matching the reality of it:

• Bombed apartment blocks become “targets”
• Dead children become “collateral damage”
• Starving civilians become “human shields”

And anyone who questions the destruction is accused of supporting terrorism. Or, as in extreme cases, of being antisemitic.

Watching Gaza burn, Lebanon bombed, and Iran drawn deeper into conflict, I find myself asking a simple question: How much is enough?

I understand the fear Israel felt after the October 7 attacks. I understand the anger. I understand the desire for justice.

What I no longer understand is the growing acceptance of endless civilian deaths as though morality itself now depends on which side is doing the killing.

At the time of the first bombings of Iran I wrote thaṯ:

“Every night, the news flickers across my screen, a parade of tragedies reduced to numbers and soundbites. Gaza burns, its streets choked with rubble and grief, thousands dead under Israeli bombs. Iran mourns too, its people buried beneath the chaos of escalating strikes. Yet the world’s voice is strangely muted, a whisper where a scream should be. But when Iran’s missiles streak toward Israel, claiming far fewer lives, the headlines roar with horror, and leaders amplify their outrage. I sit in my quiet room… trying to unravel this knot of hypocrisy. Why do some deaths ripple across the globe while others sink like stones in a silent pond?”

Perhaps the most disturbing part of all this is that the violence no longer appears temporary. What began as retaliation now feels like permanent war.

Gaza destroyed. Lebanon bombed. Iran attacked. Assassinations, airstrikes, threats of escalation; each one defended as necessary, each one promising security, while the region grows more unstable by the day.

At some point the world must ask whether this is still self-defence, or whether the Netanyahu government has become trapped in a cycle where military force is no longer a last resort but the first instinct.

A nation traumatised by terror has every right to defend itself. But defence without restraint can slowly transform into something else entirely.

History is filled with governments that believed overwhelming force would finally bring peace. More often, it deepened hatred, radicalised future generations, and left entire regions scarred for decades.

The tragedy is that every new bomb seems to push peace further away:

Civilians bury their children.

Entire cities learn to live with trauma.

Anger hardens across borders.

And leaders, notably Netanyahu and Trump – especially Trump – continue speaking the language of so-called security while ordinary people inherit the consequences of endless war.

This is disturbing. Not simply the bombs or the missiles, but how quickly human suffering becomes normalised when it is politically convenient.

Somewhere beneath the rubble are children who will never grow old, parents who will never return home, and entire generations learning that the world values some lives more than others.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is not that this “justified” war brutalises people, but the silence that eventually surrounds it.

History has taught us that.

May 29, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

The culture of power, and normalization of war in the time of artificial Intelligence -extract from Pope Leo’s Encyclical.

ENCYCLICAL LETTER
MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS
OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE LEO XIV
ON SAFEGUARDING THE HUMAN PERSON
IN THE TIME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

…………………………………………………………………………………………………The culture of power

188. In our time, a culture of power is taking hold, in which the availability of resources and the ability to dominate tend to dictate the agenda and criteria for decision-making. In this way, the common good of humanity is relegated to the background and the concrete tragedy of peoples at war is reduced to a secondary consideration in relation to strategic interests. This culture of power infiltrates society, changes relationships and behaviors, and grows by normalizing war, pursuing ever-greater military power, taking advantage of the crisis of multilateralism and fueling a false realism that insists that there is no alternative.

The normalization of war

189. In 1965, the words of Saint Paul VI resounded powerfully at the UN General Assembly: “Never again war, never again war!” [180] We must acknowledge that, despite the desires and declarations for peace, the past sixty years have been marked by conflicts of astonishing brutality, often affecting civilian populations on a massive scale, leading to the death of innocent victims, mass displacement, social destabilization and long-lasting wounds. Nevertheless, in public discourse, there was a widespread conviction that war should remain a last resort, subject to strict ethical and legal limits, and always oriented toward a political vision of peace. Following developments in the immediate post-First World War period, a turning point occurred after the Second World War: peace was made the focus of the international order, as attested in particular by the United Nations Charter, with the intention to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” [181] Likewise, many national constitutions restricted the use of force to extreme and strictly limited circumstances. Even during the Cold War, despite the existence of serious conflicts, there remained the awareness that a new world war had to be avoided at all costs.

190. Today, however, we are witnessing a real paradigm shift in public discourse and in decisions regarding rearmament, with a troubling revival of war as an instrument of international politics, while the very ethical principles that had previously limited its use are being eroded. Regional conflicts that drag on over time, escalating tensions and reciprocal threats are becoming almost commonplace, and forms of conflict driven by the desire for territorial expansion that were thought to be overcome are re-emerging. Public opinion is gradually being shaped and conditioned by polarizing media narratives, which are often amplified by algorithms that prioritize conflict and confrontation.

191. We are also witnessing a disconcerting loss of historical memory, as first-hand accounts of the Holocaust and the two World Wars are disappearing. This leads to a selective or distorted rewriting of the past, in a context where fake news and the manipulation of narratives obscure the lessons that have been learned. Without a living memory of the horrors of war, political decisions risk being made on the basis of power alone, without any consideration for the long-term consequences.

192. To all of this, the media and digital dimensions are adding new and decisive elements. Communication networks, fragmented information environments and algorithms that reward conflict can magnify polarization and resentment, increase propaganda and make shared discernment more difficult. Thus, war is not only fought, but also culturally conditioned through simplistic narratives, a friend-or-foe mentality, disinformation and fear. When historical memory fades and the ethical principles that protect civilians and the most vulnerable are weakened, it becomes easier to justify violence as necessary, inevitable or even “sanitized.” It is in this context that humanity is slipping into a violent culture of power, where peace no longer appears as a responsibility to be taken on, but as a fragile interval between conflicts. Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the “just war” theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated.

[182]  Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness. The use of force, violence and weapons reflects a relational poverty that always has disastrous consequences for civilian populations.

Force without limits

193. The growth of the military-industrial complex has become a defining feature of the current political landscape and has become a key sector in the economy of various countries. The close link between economic interests, the military apparatus and political decisions produces an “armed nation,” in which war appears as a natural extension of politics, and the arms market becomes an autonomous driving force behind military decisions. Nor can we ignore the enormous economic interests behind war. The armaments industry, and countries that supply weapons,  profit from a market that thrives precisely on conflicts. In this sense, there are also financial interests that contribute to fueling tensions in various regions of the world.

194. Military arsenals are receiving renewed attention. In the past, recognition of the threat posed by weapons capable of destroying all of humanity had promoted paths toward détente and disarmament negotiations. Unfortunately, this approach has been left behind, and the evolution of nuclear arsenals — including the prospect of its “tactical” use — makes the use of such weapons seem less improbable. In this context, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force in 2021 with the support of over seventy countries, is an important step. However, it risks remaining largely symbolic since the major nuclear powers have not agreed to it.

This has led to the widespread yet erroneous belief that nuclear deterrence is an indispensable prerequisite for security. This has also contributed to a new arms race, which is hard to control and accompanied by the gradual dismantling of nuclear reduction agreements, as well as the development of “miniaturized” weapons, that make their use seem like a more viable option.

195. The same logic applies to conventional warfare. Military force, weak diplomatic initiatives and the complexity of the interests at stake contribute to conflicts that tend to become protracted, with extremely high human and environmental costs. It is much easier to start a war than to stop it, and yet, discussion on conflict prevention remains tragically marginal.

196. The situation is further destabilized by the presence of new armed operatives, such as jihadist groups, private militias and criminal networks that mark the end of the State’s monopoly on the use of force. Often these groups intertwine vague ideological motivations with concrete economic interests, transforming war into a “way of life” for entire generations of young people and children. Here, the objective is no longer a definitive victory, but the perpetuation of conflict as a source of power and income.

Weapons and artificial intelligence

197. The above-mentioned scenario is linked to the unceasing development of weapons systems, particularly those involving AI. The Holy See has recently observed that the growing ease with which autonomous weapons systems can be deployed makes war more “feasible” and less subject to human control. This violates the principle that armed force should be used only as a last resort in cases of legitimate self-defense. [183] For this reason, the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms. [184]

198. Sometimes there is talk of “artificial moral agents,” as if machines were able to distinguish between right and wrong with greater consistency than a human being. Yet moral judgment cannot be reduced to calculation, for it involves conscience, personal responsibility and the recognition of the other as a person. Therefore, it is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems. No algorithm can make war morally acceptable.  AI does not remove the intrinsic inhumanity of conflict; indeed it can only bring about conflict more quickly and render it more impersonal, lowering the threshold for resorting to violence, transforming defense into threat prediction and thus reducing victims to data. In this way, it will accustom us to the idea that violence is inevitable and needs only to be optimized. This does not diminish the importance of instilling, as far as possible, values and sound judgment into the artificial systems we build, so that they can contribute to a moral ecosystem in which humans are better able to listen to their own consciences, as well as allowing AI models to establish appropriate boundaries.

199. It is not enough to invoke a generic type of ethics. Concrete criteria for discernment must be established. The first such criterion concerns personal responsibility. When a decision to strike becomes automated or opaque, the risk of abdicating responsibility increases. For this reason, the chain of responsibility must be identifiable and verifiable; those who design, train, authorize and employ technology must be held accountable for their decisions.   The second criterion pertains to the moral timeframe for making judgments. While AI tends to expedite the decision-making processes, speed and efficiency should never be the supreme motivating force for the irreversible decisions made in the context of war. The third criterion is the identification and protection of civilians. Any technology that facilitates attacks without seeing the face of human beings lowers the moral threshold of conflict.  Target selection and the use of force must not confuse combatants and non-combatants, nor ignore the impact on defenseless populations.

200. These criteria give rise to certain non-negotiable requirements. First, all systems used in a war setting must guarantee the possibility of retracing and reconstructing decision-making processes, so that accountability and blame are not collapsed into “the machine.” Second, the decision to use lethal force cannot be delegated to opaque or automated processes, but must remain under effective, self-aware and responsible human control. Finally, it is imperative to establish a shared framework — also at the international level — in order to curb the technological arms race and ensure robust protection for civilians and the infrastructures necessary for their survival.

The crisis of multilateralism

201. The culture of power also stems from the crisis of the multilateral system. The institutions established to safeguard the concept of a common future for all peoples and a global common good appear to have been weakened. This is due not only to structural limitations, but also to a frequent lack of shared will to support and reform them, or to recognize their moral authority. Instead of making progress, we are regressing from the significant turning point of the twentieth century.  After 1989, the collapse of communist regimes in Europe was followed by a predominantly economic globalization, which lacked an adequate political framework capable of sustaining dialogue and peace. An almost blind faith was placed in the ability of the markets to generate prosperity, democracy and stability. In reality, rather than automatically generating unity and peace, globalization has provoked fundamentalist, identity-based and nationalistic reactions. The result is a far cry from genuine multilateralism; instead, what has appeared is a disorderly and conflict-ridden multipolarism with a prevailing sense of mistrust.

202. What has also re-emerged is the temptation to forge a collective identity in opposition to an enemy, fueled by narratives in which each party portrays itself as a victim entitled to retribution. The reduction of complex issues into simplistic categories — “me first,” “friend or foe,” “us or them” — facilitates decisions that are often irresponsible and undermine mutual trust among nations. The force of international law is thus replaced by the claim that “might makes right.” Consequently, tribunals that are competent for settling disputes between States or dealing with war crimes are often weakened or bypassed, with devastating ramifications for political culture and social cohesion. [185]

203. In this context, peacebuilding has been relegated to a secondary role. Cooperation for development, disarmament, conflict prevention and the establishment of mutual trust are neglected in the name of power politics. The achievements of humanitarian law are also being compromised. Indeed, the principle of proportionality in responding to aggression, the protection of access to water, food and essential goods, and respect for the lives of civilians, especially children, come to be regarded as naïve relics of the past.

A supposed political realism

204. We live at a time of significant spiritual and cultural blindness. A false pragmatism urges us to sever the roots of our history, as if it were possible to inaugurate a kind of “new creation” detached from the past. Even those who cite important moral principles can fall into this historical nihilism, mistakenly believing that the atrocities of the twentieth century can never happen again. Yet, in reality, the same dynamics are re-emerging under new guises.

The mentality of armed equilibrium and deterrence appears to be reasserting itself. Today, however, in contrast to the two-sided dynamic of the Cold War, the proliferation of operatives and battlefields makes this mentality increasingly fragile. Escalating conflicts lead to asymmetric and “hybrid” wars, fought not only on the battleground but also on the economic, financial and cyber fronts, where disinformation and campaigns that feed people’s fears are used to manipulate public opinion. In many countries, including those in the Global South, increased military spending is presented as the only response to an uncertain future or perceived threats. Meanwhile, the real cost falls on the poorest, who see resources for healthcare, education and social services being reduced.

205. At the core of these issues is a false realism, based not only on the prevailing mentality of force, but on the cultural and anthropological belief that war is an inevitable part of human nature. It is said that things have always been this way, except for occasional pauses, and that it will always be so! As a result, the concern is no longer the search for peace — which has been lost as a point of reference on the international stage — but rather how and when to take military action. This same argument maintains that it would be irresponsible not to prepare for conflict. I would argue, however, that what is truly irresponsible is Realpolitik, the form of political “realism” that sows in consciences and in society an attitude of resignation to the inevitability of war, and dismisses peace and dialogue as utopian or irrational positions that ignore the risks at stake. In fact, peace is neither a naïve hope nor merely the absence of war; instead, it is always possible as the fruit of justice and charity.

206. In such a climate, nihilism and pragmatism become intertwined and end up normalizing grave errors. Religious extremism and identity-based fanaticism ally themselves with irrational economic policies, while politics often turns to misinformation and ridiculing opponents, and systematically cultivating fears and resentments. Thus, diversity is increasingly perceived as a threat, which fuels a desire for possession, a will to dominate, hegemonic ambitions, abuses of power and a fear of those who are different, thereby creating an environment in which new conflicts can develop almost imperceptibly. [186]

207. This, then, is the fertile ground for new wars that are perhaps even more dangerous than those of the past, since they tend to disregard all ethical limits. What was once considered unacceptable can now be carried out almost without hesitation, while the international response is increasingly influenced more by the interests of individual Governments than by the objective gravity of situations. Decisions now seem to be driven almost exclusively by economic calculations, justified through media distortions, manufactured enthusiasm and “dreams” that inevitably shatter, generating frustration and further violence. When people come to believe that nothing is genuinely true and that principles are hollow words, then the fuse in their hearts is lit for new eruptions of intolerance and aggression.

208. In these situations, the issue of concrete safeguards to prevent future violence remains an open question. When a culture normalizes and justifies conflict, a dangerous pathway opens up, in that what seems unthinkable today may become acceptable tomorrow in the name of utility or security. In countries marked by serious social tensions, we cannot rule out the possibility that some leaders may consider armed conflict as an effective way of diverting attention from domestic problems and a cynical tool for managing difficulties.

209. A particular responsibility rests on the shoulders of those who work in the field of research. All the key players in this field — scientists, business owners, investors, academic authorities, politicians and others — must work with a transparent and responsible mindset, while maintaining an acute awareness of the broader context of the technological advancements they help to cultivate, including those related to AI. When people limit themselves to looking only at their own sector, they may deceive themselves into believing they are performing actions that are morally neutral and avoid questions about the ultimate ends that guide certain experiments. In this way, they risk cooperating — perhaps unknowingly — with questionable projects that fuel new forms of violence, manipulation and dominance.

Building the civilization of love

210. The construction of a world in a state of perpetual conflict is an evil and must be named for what it is. This way of portraying our current situation may seem bleak or pessimistic, yet I consider it necessary to do so. The Christian perspective, however, is not limited to denouncing evil. We view history in the light of the crucified and risen Lord, to whom the Father has given “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Mt 28:18). We do not consider the present as a predetermined fate, but an opportunity for personal and collective conversion. Moreover, we believe in the power of the Kingdom, which grows from the tiny size of a mustard seed, which, once sown, sprouts and grows (cf. Mk 4:26-32). While the tumult of confusion is all around us, goodness grows silently from the earth. In the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is 43:19).

211. A closer analysis of history confirms this. Even in the darkest nights, the Lord raises up men and women who refuse to give up, who persevere in doing good, who protect the vulnerable and open pathways to reconciliation. The memory of the saints, righteous people and the oft-forgotten peacemakers, show us that grace does not magically eliminate conflict, but instead it inspires active resistance to evil and an astonishing creativity in doing good. Christians see the darkness and acknowledge it for what it is, yet they do not merely gaze upon it passively, for they know the light and understand that the darkness has not overcome it and cannot defeat it (cf. Jn 1:5). For this reason, even when suffering seems to have the last word, Christians serve the good and are sustained by a theological hope that gives reality both meaning and direction.

We can all do our part

212. At this point, however, a subtle temptation may emerge, namely the thought that the problems are too big and we are too small, and that our choices, therefore, cannot make a difference. This is a polite form of resignation, often disguised as realism. Certainly, not everyone has the same power to make a difference. There are those who govern, make investment decisions, lead institutions, conduct research, educate, produce or provide information, and then there are those who only seem to live their daily lives. Yet, no one is without responsibility. We all have our own areas for action, and it is precisely there — and nowhere else — that we must choose whether to fuel the mentality of force (even if only through indifference, cynicism, lies or hatred), or to preserve the mindset of peace (with truth, moderation, closeness and care)………….https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html?utm_campaign=may26morningnote&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iterable&utm_content=morningnote#The_civilization_of_love

May 29, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

We Must Resist the Collapse of Conscience in the Age of Trump

May 10, 2026, By Henry A. Giroux, https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/10/we-must-resist-the-collapse-of-conscience-in-the-age-of-trump/

Trumpism can only thrive in a culture stripped of its conscience. To combat this, conscience must become contagious.

Under the Trump regime, the United States has entered a dark age in which conscience is not merely ignored but systematically dismantled. Compassion is mocked as weakness, truth treated as disposable, and cruelty elevated into a governing principle. This is more than corruption. It signals the suffocation of civic culture under gangster capitalism — a predatory system in which power serves wealth, law serves vengeance, and democracy is hollowed out from within.Donald Trump did not create this moral vacuum. He seized it, refined it, and weaponized it. For decades, neoliberal rule has hollowed out the social state, normalized staggering inequality, elevated billionaires to the status of civic arbiters, and schooled generations to believe that self-interest is the highest virtue. Public goods were dismantled or sold off, civic responsibility withered, and citizens were reduced to consumers, detached from any shared sense of fate. In such a landscape, empathy is no longer a public good but a private burden, something to be shed in the relentless pursuit of profit, power, and spectacle. As Zygmunt Bauman notes in Modernity and the Holocaust, gangster capitalism as a form of fascist politics thrives on “moral sleeping pills” and “the dead silence of unconcern.”

The war on empathy is central to our lethal white supremacist culture, which thrives on violence and normalizes the politics of disposability. This assault is starkly visible in the rhetoric of Elon Musk, who has claimed that empathy itself threatens Western civilization. Such a view does not stand alone. It echoes a broader right-wing crusade, amplified by segments of white evangelical Christianity in the United States, that casts empathy as a dangerous moral weakness. In this distorted logic, compassion becomes a political weapon attributed to liberals and Democrats, who are accused of eroding “Western values” by extending care and recognition to those deemed expendable, particularly immigrants from poorer, racialized, and predominantly Muslim nations. 

What takes shape here is not simply the erosion of empathy, but its deliberate inversion, a cultural alchemy in which cruelty is elevated to virtue and exclusion is recast as a civilizational imperative. This assault on empathy, mobilized to inflame hatred against those cast as the “other,” cannot be dismissed as mere prejudice or psychological aberration. It draws from a deeper historical reservoir of violence, one that, as Pankaj Mishra observes, has “enabled ordinary people to contribute to acts of mass extermination with a clear conscience, even with frissons of virtue.”

What has emerged is not only a political crisis but a cultural collapse. Moral cowards and political nihilists occupy the commanding heights of national politics, while culture itself has been stripped of civic responsibility, compassion, imagination, and courage. In its place stands a brutalizing ethos, animated by a crude authoritarianism that eviscerates historical memory, turns state terrorism into a model of governance, and rewards cruelty. Institutions tasked with preserving history are being transformed from sites of critical remembrance into instruments of distortion, where history is emptied of its lessons and repurposed to serve power rather than truth.

What passes for dissent in the face of the war on Iran has been hollowed out by a culture organized around profit and convenience. Public outrage, when it surfaces at all, is largely measured in cents at the gas pump rather than in lives extinguished. While such economic pressures are real, especially for those already burdened by inequality, they eclipse far graver questions. For instance, Amnesty International writes, “an unlawful U.S. strike on a school in Minab, in Iran’s Hormozgan province, killed 156 people, including 120 children,” an act that the organization insists must be held accountable under international law. Yet such atrocities barely register within a media landscape that reduces war to economic inconvenience. The mass killing of children, the targeting of civilians, the normalization of state violence, all recede into the background, erased by a politics that translates human suffering into market fluctuations. This is not merely distraction, it is a form of moral cowardice, a willful shrinking of conscience in which unbearable violence is rendered invisible so long as the machinery of profit remains undisturbed.

Within this degraded moral order, MAGA culture thrives on a toxic fusion of hyper-nationalism, manufactured ignorance, and unapologetic cruelty. Violence, once a marker of social breakdown, is now aestheticized, turned into spectacle, and circulated as a form of entertainment, numbing the public to its real, devastating consequences. Blood flows freely in a culture obsessed with guns — in houses of worship, schools, supermarkets, streets, and too many other spaces of daily life. Power consolidates itself not only through force but through complicity, as major media institutions trade truth for access, amplify lies, and normalize the unthinkable through silence and distortion. This is evident as the new techno-authoritarians buy up powerful cultural platforms such as CBS and CNN. Jeff Bezos has told his opinion writers not to criticize capitalism; the mainstream press largely refuses to criticize Israel’s war crimes and focus on irrelevant or trivial stories rather than on a world in crisis and disarray.

In this context, the words of Annie Ernaux from her Nobel lecture are worth repeating, particular her powerful call to use language to light the unspeakable. A task more necessary today than ever before. She writes:

“In the bringing to light of the social unspeakable, of those internalized power relations linked to class and/or race, and gender too, felt only by the people who directly experience their impact, the possibility of individual but also collective emancipation emerges. To decipher the real world by stripping it of the visions and values that language, all language, carries within it is to upend its established order, upset its hierarchies.”

The failure “to bring to light” extends into higher education. Universities, which should function as critical democratic spheres, have largely retreated into caution or complicity. Faced with ongoing violence in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, where thousands have been killed in recent days, many institutions have chosen silence. Worse still, they have disciplined and criminalized students who dare to protest these atrocities. At places such as University of California, Berkeley, reports of cooperation with state authorities against student and faculty activists reveal a betrayal that is not merely institutional but moral. University presidents now condemn commencement speakers that criticize genocidal wars in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. Such actions echo the bleakest periods in modern history, recalling the capitulations of higher education under regimes such as Nazi Germany, Pinochet’s Chile, and Mussolini’s Italy, where intellectual life was subordinated to the dictates of power and dissent was treated as a crime.

Trump emerged from this wasteland as both symptom and accelerant. He governs through spectacle and fear. Migrants are caged, dissenters threatened, educators attacked, and the vulnerable rendered disposable. Language itself is poisoned. When words lose their ethical force, society loses its ability to distinguish justice from barbarism.

The collapse of conscience is also visible in the fusion of war and profiteering. Trump’s saber-rattling toward Iran, and the threat of further wars in the Middle East, reveal how militarism functions as political theater while arms makers and energy interests wait in the wings for profit. Death abroad becomes profit at home. Under gangster capitalism, bloodshed is not tragedy, it is revenue.

Under Trump, corruption has moved into the open, unapologetically embraced by the president and his craven family members. No previous president has blurred the line between public office and private gain so shamelessly. Recent estimates suggest Trump has personally profited at least $1.4085 billionsince returning to office, likely an understatement given hidden dealings. The presidency has become less a public trust than a vulgar and unethical private investment vehicle. 

This is not simply a national crisis. What is unfolding under Trump’s influence signals a broader international crisis in which corruption is elevated to a governing principle, openly sanctioned and even celebrated. Trump does not simply tolerate such practices; he legitimates them, giving license to a political culture in which ethical violations are reframed as strategy and moral crimes are rewarded as signs of strength. In this emerging order, the language of democracy is emptied of its remaining substance while its institutions are completely retooled to serve power, wealth, and impunity.

This shift does not remain confined within national borders. The logic of privatization, the rise of anti-democratic populism, the assault on public institutions, and the normalization of cruelty travel with alarming ease across the globe. They circulate through global markets, digital media, and political networks, embedding themselves in the everyday life of societies far removed from their point of origin. Authoritarian impulses learn from one another, borrow tactics, and amplify their reach, producing a global culture in which repression is normalized and dissent is increasingly criminalized.

What is at stake, then, is not simply the fate of a single nation but the corrosion of democratic life on an international scale. The spectacle of power without accountability, wealth without responsibility, and violence without consequence becomes a model to emulate rather than a warning to heed. In such a climate, vigilance is not a choice but a necessity, requiring a renewed global commitment to civic courage, ethical responsibility, and the defense of democratic institutions capable of resisting the accelerating drift toward authoritarian rule.

It is also visible in the assault on memory. Authoritarian politics thrives when history is erased and critical thought is replaced by slogans. Books are banned, teachers threatened, universities disciplined,and discourse reduced to rage and distraction. Trumpism understands what Democrats too often forget: Education is a battleground because memory is a form of resistance. A society that cannot remember injustice is condemned to repeat it.

Most dangerous of all is the spread of thoughtlessness and manufactured ignorance through a culture filled with disimagination machines, producing an inability to judge right from wrong. People cheer policies that harm them, applaud cruelty toward others, and accept corruption as normal. Conscience collapses not only through repression from above, but through surrender from below.

Yet conscience can be revived. It begins by refusing the language of disposability and reclaiming the idea that no one is expendable. It means connecting private pain to public causes, seeing that loneliness, debt, fear, and despair are not personal failures but political outcomes. It means rebuilding institutions that nurture critical thought, solidarity, and compassion rather than greed and obedience. It means reclaiming literacy as a way to read the world critically.

The antidote is not nostalgia for a broken past. It is a radical democracy rooted in shared responsibility, economic justice, and the courage to care for others. Conscience is never a private luxury. It is the lifeblood of public freedom.

The real crisis in the United States is not only Trump. It is the social order that made him possible and the moral silence that allows him to flourish. If democracy is to survive, conscience must become contagious. We need a mass movement of workers, youth, educators, artists, and all those denied dignity to turn outrage into collective power. Yet such resistance is already emerging in cities, classrooms, workplaces, neighborhoods, and on the streets. In Minneapolis, for instance, communities, labor unions, students, immigrant rights groups, and local residents mobilized against brutal immigration raids and mass deportation policies, creating networks of mutual aid, public protest, legal defense, and civic solidarity that challenged the machinery of fear and disposability. Across the country, teachers are defending critical education against censorship, students are organizing against the militarization of public life, workers are unionizing against exploitative labor conditions, and artists and journalists are exposing the violence hidden beneath the spectacle of authoritarian politics. These struggles matter because they refuse the language of inevitability. They remind us that democracy is never handed down by elites but is forged collectively through acts of courage, solidarity, and refusal. Against a culture of cruelty, state violence, and the mobilizing passions of fascism, such movements keep alive the radical possibility that another future can still be imagined and fought for.

The choice before us is stark: a society governed by cruelty, greed, and organized forgetting, or one animated by justice, memory, and solidarity. Trump has shown us what the collapse of conscience looks like, how a culture organized around fear, unchecked greed, moral compromise, and the pressures of conformity can hollow out democratic life and turn human beings into objects of suspicion, disposability, and silence. What is at stake is not simply the fate of a political system, but the moral compass of society itself. In an age when capitalism rewards selfishness, punishes compassion, and trades civic responsibility for the ruthless pursuit of power, the greatest danger is not only the rise of authoritarian figures, but the willingness of ordinary people to accommodate them. The question, then, is whether we have the courage to resist the seductions of conformity, reclaim the ethical imagination, and rebuild a culture in which justice, collective responsibility, and the dignity of human life matter more than profit, spectacle, and fear.

May 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Nuns join calls for renewed support for anti-nuclear treaty

The declaration argued that underlying the current situation “is a spiritual crisis rooted in the normalization of violence and war as instruments for resolving conflict between peoples and nations

by Chris Herlinger, New York — May 11, 2026, https://www.globalsistersreport.org/social-justice/nuns-join-calls-renewed-support-anti-nuclear-treaty

Sister congregations are adding their names to calls at the United Nations for a renewed commitment to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.

In a statement read publicly during the first week of a monthlong review conference of the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, 109 faith groups, including more than a dozen sister congregations, called on political leaders “to reaffirm the spirit of the NPT as an urgent and binding commitment.”

“Fifty-six years after the entry into force of the NPT, the treaty’s most fundamental commitment remains unfulfilled,” said Dominican Sr. Carol Gilbert, a longtime anti-nuclear-weapons activist, speaking at the U.N.’s General Assembly Hall in New York May 1 on behalf of the faith groups. The review meetings run from April 27 to May 22.

“We see the NPT unraveling and a proliferation crisis brewing,” Gilbert said. “All nuclear-armed states are modernizing their arsenals with new delivery systems and doctrines that lower the threshold for use. The moral authority of the treaty depends upon the credibility of the disarmament commitment. That credibility is now in crisis.”

Most of the organizations signing on to the statement are Christian, but across a spectrum of largely Catholic, Protestant and Anglican groups, as well as interfaith organizations. Among the Catholic organizations are global members of Pax Christi and some 20 congregations of women religious, including multiple congregations affiliated with the Dominicans and Sisters of Charity.

The statement read by Gilbert said that those holding “power today do not fully grasp how near we have already come to nuclear war.” 

The declaration argued that underlying the current situation “is a spiritual crisis rooted in the normalization of violence and war as instruments for resolving conflict between peoples and nations.”

The statement said: “When armed force is treated as a first resort, when military spending eclipses investment in human development, when entire populations are taught to accept the threat of annihilation as a condition of their security, our moral imagination has failed.

“We affirm that genuine security is built on justice, on mutual care, on the recognition that no nation’s safety can rest on another nation’s annihilation.”

The United Nations’ Office of Disarmament Affairs calls the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty “a landmark international treaty” that was designed “to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, to further the goals of nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament, and to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”

The treaty, the U.N. said, is “the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon states” and is regarded as a cornerstone in efforts to end the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Acceptance of nuclear use called ‘spiritual sickness’

In a longer written statement entered into the proceedings’ official record, the faith groups said that the “acceptance of apocalyptic violence as the final arbiter of disputes among nations is not simply a strategic posture. It is a spiritual sickness — one that every faith tradition we represent has named, lamented and called its followers to resist.”

In specific actions, the statement calls for nations to recommit to verifiable reductions in nuclear weapons with a moratorium on new warhead development, with a return to negotiations that includes all nuclear-armed states, including the United States, which was one of the first nations to sign and ratify the treaty.

As an example of the continued uncertainty surrounding nuclear weapons and war, Gilbert said in an interview that it is not clear if the United States and Israel have ruled out using a nuclear weapon against Iran. “We don’t know with [President Donald] Trump what’s on or off the table,” she said.

Gilbert noted that according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “We are at 85 seconds to midnight,” citing the bulletin’s “doomsday clock,” which the bulletin said is now the closest the clock “has ever been to midnight in its history.” 

Gilbert told GSR that the present moment “is the closest we have ever been to using nuclear weapons.” She noted one looming challenge is the danger artificial intelligence poses to military operations.

Other issues, Gilbert argues, include that “many in powerful positions continue to support the arms industry and all those who make billions on these ‘forever wars

With U.S. spending on arms significantly higher than any other country in the world, “we continue to rob the poorest around the world as the money is taken from social programs, healthcare, education and childcare,” she said.

Responding to the review conference and to the overall state of nuclear weaponry in the world, Mary Yelenick, the main representative of Pax Christi International at the United Nations, told GSR that the “nine nations that presently possess nuclear weapons seem to enjoy holding the planet hostage to their will.”

She added: “They seem to view the NPT not as a binding legal document, but as a pesky impediment to their own national policies. They count on obfuscation, and employ responsible-sounding language, such as ‘deterrence,’ to justify their murderous positions.”

Yelenick, who is an American, was particularly critical of the United States, citing the fact that the United States “not only possesses nuclear weapons,” but is the sole country that “has actually used them — murdering countless people, and irradiating multiple generations and lands through the development and use of those weapons.”

She noted that the United States used two nuclear weapons in Japan at the end of the Second World War and later tested them on U.S. and non-U.S. lands.

Annemarie O’Connor, the representative to the United Nations for Passionists International, attended the May 1 meeting at the U.N. She told GSR that given current global tensions, adhering to the Non-Proliferation Treaty is important for the whole of humanity and the planet.

She also acknowledged that despite the review meetings at the United Nations, the issue of nuclear perils is not high on the global agenda, either for nation states or the media. “But we have to respond to this,” she said. “It’s urgent, and really important.”

May 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Peter Beinart on What It Means to Be Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza

SCHEERPOST, May 6, 2026 

“American Jews and Jews in general are safer in countries where everybody is treated equally under the law,” Peter Beinart tells TRNN. “The principle of Jewish supremacy, and Christian supremacy, and Hindu supremacy, and Islamic supremacy—all of those things are wrong.”

Marc Steiner TRNN,  May 6, 2026

Amid Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza, its illegal annexation of land in the Occupied West Bank, and belligerent warmaking in Iran and Lebanon, antisemitism around the globe is rising—but so is an international chorus of anti-Zionist Jews speaking out against Israel’s crimes. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with renowned author and commentator Peter Beinart about his new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, and about the “civil war” within the Jewish world over Israel.

…………………………………………………………. Marc Steiner:

I was thinking many ways how to start this, but this is a very difficult time for Palestinians to survive. It’s also a very difficult time for Jews to stand up saying, “Not in our name.” And you are one of the most prominent people out there saying that and not being anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish about it. So talk a bit about that for a minute, just your whole way of approaching what we face.

Peter Beinart:

Well, Judaism is an ancient tradition, which speaks in many, many voices. But for me, when I think about what it means to be a Jew, and I start with the belief that Torah begins with the creation of human beings who are not of any religion or race or ethnicity. The first human beings that we encounter in Torah are not Jews or proto-Jews or Israelites or proto-Israelites. Adam and Eve and Noah, generation of the Tower of Babel, Cain and Abel, they’re universal human beings. And I think the lesson to that for me is that all human beings have incalculable value and that we must never lose sight of the value of all human life. And so what we see in the discourse in Israel and in many Jewish communities around the world is a support for the state of Israel that essentially trumps the value of the lives of all the people who live within that state.

And that seems to me actually something akin to idolatry. It’s essentially the worship of something human made, the creation of a state, and the elevation of it over the lives of the human beings, human beings created in the image of God who live within that state, 50% of whom are Palestinian. And so to me, I think what’s incumbent upon us as Jews is to recenter the value of all human life, including Palestinian life at the center of how we think about what it means to be Jewish……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/06/peter-beinart-on-what-it-means-to-be-jewish-after-the-destruction-of-gaza/

May 10, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Pope Leo rejects claim he supports nuclear weapons after Trump tirade

Pontiff responds after US president accuses him of ‘endangering a lot of Catholics’ with stance on Iran war

Angela Giuffrida in Rome, 7 May 26

Pope Leo has said he has never supported nuclear weapons and that those who criticise him need to speak the truth, in response to Donald Trump’s latest tirade accusing him of “endangering a lot of Catholics” with his stance on the Iran war.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday night after leaving the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, the first US-born pontiff said: “The mission of the church is to preach the gospel, to preach peace.”

Leo, who is to meet the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in the Vatican on Thursday in an effort to ease tensions sparked by previous Trump broadsides, made a plea for honesty in political debate.

“If anyone wants to criticise me for proclaiming the gospel, let them do so with the truth: the church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons for years, there is no doubt about that,” the pope said. “I simply hope to be listened to because of the value of God’s word.”

Earlier in the day, Trump told Hugh Hewitt, a prominent conservative radio talkshow host: “The pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good.

“I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people. But I guess if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

In the Vatican, the latest remarks were met with puzzlement. Asked on Wednesday how he evaluated the attacks, Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, told reporters: “For me it seems a bit strange, to say the least.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/06/pope-leo-rejects-claim-he-supports-nuclear-weapons-trump-tirade-iran-war

May 7, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Joint interfaith statement calls for world free of nuclear weapons

May 2nd, 2026, https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/54916

The following joint Interfaith statement on the occasion of the 11th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was released this week. 109 organisations signed the document.

We, as people of faith, join in solidarity with our voices to call upon the leaders of the world to rescue the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) from crisis and to honour its deepest commitment: creating a world free from nuclear weapons.

On March 5, 1970, the NPT entered into force-emerging following the horrors of the previous decades. The Treaty rests on an extraordinary promise: non-nuclear-weapon states pledged not to acquire nuclear weapons, while nuclear-weapon states committed under Article VI to pursue negotiations in good faith toward complete disarmament.

Fifty-six years later, the Treaty’s most fundamental commitment remains unfulfilled. We see the NPT unraveling and a proliferation crisis brewing. The obligation to negotiate disarmament has been deferred, diluted, and in many cases openly dismissed. All nuclear-armed states are modernising their arsenals with new delivery systems and doctrines that lower the threshold for use. The moral authority of the Treaty depends upon the credibility of the disarmament commitment. That credibility is now in crisis.

The Urgency and Risk We Face Today

With the Doomsday Clock set to 85 seconds to midnight, we are now the closest we have ever been to catastrophe. Many who hold power today do not fully grasp how near we have already come to nuclear war. We have survived not because our systems are foolproof, but because we have been lucky. And luck, as the UN Secretary-General said, is not a strategy.

Underlying all of this is a spiritual crisis rooted in the normalization of violence and war as instruments for resolving conflict between peoples and nations. When armed force is treated as a first resort, when military spending eclipses investment in human development, when entire populations are taught to accept the threat of annihilation as a condition of their security, our moral imagination has failed. The acceptance of apocalyptic violence as the final arbiter of disputes among nations is not simply a strategic posture. It is a spiritual sickness-one that every faith tradition we represent has named, lamented, and called its followers to resist.

Our Faith Calls Us to Act

It is our conviction, held in common across our diverse faith traditions, that life is a precious gift. And alongside that great gift comes the responsibility to both care for each other and for this good Earth entrusted to us. Nuclear weapons represent a failure on both counts-a betrayal of our duty to protect one another and to safeguard the planet that sustains all life.

We affirm that genuine security is built on justice, on mutual care, on the recognition that no nation’s safety can rest on another nation’s annihilation. We pray that the future of your children and ours is safeguarded and the fear of annihilation becomes a shadow of the past.

And so we hold hope in this crisis-hope as a bold conviction that the choices of this generation can determine whether the consequences of nuclear escalation are carried into future generations or halted in our time.

Our Call to Leaders Around the World

We call on our leaders to reaffirm the spirit of the NPT as an urgent and binding commitment. We recognise the depth of the divisions among NPT member states. But we refuse to accept paralysis. We call for States to engage in real dialogue, moving beyond entrenched positions, to find the common ground of our shared survival. The challenges are numerous and complex. Yet, we hold hope that our leaders have the courage to prevent another nuclear catastrophe.

On the occasion of the 11th NPT Review Conference, we call on our leaders to honour two commitments above all. First, recommit to Article VI-not in rhetoric, but in action: with verifiable reductions, with a moratorium on new warhead development, with a return to negotiations that includes all nuclear-armed states. The grand bargain of the NPT cannot survive if one half of it is perpetually deferred. Second, center human security in nuclear policy. Decisions about nuclear weapons must be grounded not in the security of states alone, but in the shared security of all people

Faith, conscience and commitment to truly inclusive peace compel us to carry with us the voices of the hibakusha, the downwinders, and all global communities who have experienced and borne witness to the suffering that nuclear weapons inflict. We carry with us the hopes of our children, who deserve to inherit a world where the threat of extinction does not hang over every cradle.

We hold you in the Light. And we pray for you to be a beacon to your children and our children showing the path toward a better future. You have the power to begin creating a world free from nuclear weapons. We are asking you to use it.

Endorsing Organizations: (109)……………………………………………………………………………………………………https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/54916

May 5, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment