"If you want peace, prepare peace," exhorted Don Primo Mazzolari. In an age when European governments speak casually of rearmament and new wars, and arms industries thrive in a golden era, the Gospel continues to utter the only word that is truly inconvenient: peace. And it challenges us: can there be real peace without disarmament?
“How can we keep betraying the people's yearning for peace with the false propaganda of rearmament, under the vain illusion that supremacy solves problems instead of fuelling hatred and revenge? People are increasingly aware of the massive amounts of money going into the pockets of death merchants – funds that could be used to build hospitals and schools, and instead are used to destroy the ones that already exist!” This is the powerful question posed by Pope Leo XIV in his address to the Plenary Assembly of the ROACO.
Don Primo Mazzolari had already grasped this after the Second World War: every war, even a "defensive" one, is a trap for the poor, an affront to both God and humanity, a betrayal of the Gospel. If war is a sin, he wrote, then no one has the right to declare it – not even a parliament. And whoever commands another to kill “steals from God what belongs to God.”
His was not a spiritualist escape from history, but a profound immersion in history in the light of the Eternal. “Peace is the health of a people,” he wrote. Just as a father desires health for his child, so too must those who love their homeland safeguard its peace. But how can we do so when, still today, the logic of armed power dominates the chancelleries of the West? How, when every crisis is seized as a pretext for new military spending?
War is always a crime, rearmament a reverse prophecy
"Besides the fact that war is always criminal..." So begins one of Mazzolari’s most radical and prophetic writings. Criminal, because it relies on force to settle questions of justice; disproportionate, because it claims to bring peace through bloodshed; anti-human, anti-Christian, because it kills fraternity. Everyone knows this. Few dare say it aloud.
And here lies today’s paradox: the same people who hailed the Pope as “kind, close to the people, innovative” were quick to censor him when he spoke of a “piecemeal Third World War”. Yet the myth of the “just war” endures. But who decides which war is just? Who defines whether it is truly defensive? Who authorises a nation to become both judge and executioner? The truth is simple and devastating: every war is fratricide – and as Mazzolari said, either we condemn them all, or we end up accepting them all. This leads to the burning question: can we truly preach peace while justifying the arms race? Can we applaud a Pope who says, “Peace be with you,” while signing billion-euro contracts for drones, tanks, and cluster bombs?
Mazzolari had no doubt: to rearm is to prepare for war. It is a prophecy in reverse: instead of announcing the Kingdom, it prepares hell. “At a certain point,” Napoleon once said, “the guns fire by themselves.” The only Gospel coherence is this: if you want peace, prepare peace.
This is precisely the appeal repeated by Leo XIV: “I ask myself: as Christians, beyond indignation, raising our voices and rolling up our sleeves to build peace and foster dialogue, what else can we do? I believe we must, first of all, truly pray. It is up to us to turn every tragic news story and image into a cry of intercession to God. Then, we must help – as you do, and as many others do, or can do through you. But there is more, and I say this especially thinking of Eastern Christians: there is testimony. It is the call to remain faithful to Jesus, without becoming entangled in the tentacles of power. It is to imitate Christ, who conquered evil by loving from the Cross, showing a way of reigning different from that of Herod and Pilate: one, out of fear of being overthrown, had the children killed – and children today continue to be slaughtered by bombs; the other washed his hands, as we risk doing daily, up to the edge of the irreparable. Let us look to Jesus, who calls us to heal the wounds of history with the meekness of his glorious Cross, from which flows the strength of forgiveness, the hope of a new beginning, and the duty to remain honest and transparent in the sea of corruption. Let us follow Christ, who has freed hearts from hatred, and let us lead by example to break free from the logic of division and retaliation. I want to thank and embrace in spirit all the Eastern Christians who respond to evil with good: thank you, brothers and sisters, for your testimony – especially when you remain in your lands as disciples and witnesses of Christ.”
This address to ROACO is a prophetic speech on peace that transcends diplomatic statements and ritual formulas. Leo XIV speaks with clarity, denouncing the perverse mechanisms of power by invoking Herod and Pilate not as distant figures, but as present-day symbols of violence and indifference.
It is a radical call to Christian coherence: yes, we must pray – but also bear witness with our lives. We must reject complicity with oppressive powers and choose the seemingly weak, yet truly powerful, path of the Cross. The Pope points to forgiveness, transparency, and honesty as the true tools for healing the wounds of the world. He looks with admiration to Eastern Christians who, by remaining faithful to the Gospel in lands torn by suffering, embody the hope and real possibility of a different future. There is no peace without courage, says the Pope – and the greatest courage is to love even when everything around us cries out for hatred and revenge.
John XXIII: Disarmament of arsenals and of hearts
In Pacem in Terris (1963), Saint John XXIII wrote with sorrow about the arms race: “Since weapons exist,” he said, “and though it may be hard to believe that someone would use them, it cannot be excluded that some uncontrollable event might spark the flame.”
He rejected the idea of a peace based on fear. He denounced the myth of “mutually assured destruction” and called for complete disarmament: not only of military stockpiles, but of hearts and minds. He insisted that we must dismantle the war mentality, dissolve the “war psychosis,” and replace the logic of force with that of reciprocal trust. It was a profound and prophetic intuition – and tragically, an ignored one. Even today, peace is often conceived as a product of deterrence. On television talk shows, one hears arguments in favour of the “nuclear bomb” as a way to intimidate adversaries. But if peace is truly a gift, as the Gospel reminds us, it cannot be imposed. It must be offered. It cannot be guaranteed by weapons, but only by justice and truth.
A time of choice for Christians
Don Primo Mazzolari wrote with disarming clarity: “If, after twenty centuries of the Gospel, we still have a world without peace, Christians must bear part of the blame.” He was not referring only to career politicians. He was speaking of each one of us – the believer who, though active in politics, supports war logic, and the one who votes for parties and leaders who stoke conflict and finance weapons industries.
Instead, the Christian is called to build a movement of Christian resistance to war. To refuse orders that contradict God’s commandment. To bear witness to peace – even in silence, even through martyrdom. “The sheep that refuses to become a wolf,” Mazzolari wrote, “does not justify the wolf: it resists by dying, not by killing.”
This is not utopia. It is the Gospel. And if it seems “outside of history,” it is only because history, unless it changes course, will remain a succession of fratricides – “that is to say, anti-history.”
A message still awaiting a voice
“It is truly sad to witness the triumph of the law of the strongest, where personal interests are legitimised. It is disheartening to see the force of international law and humanitarian law no longer binding, replaced by a supposed right to force others by violence. This is unworthy of humanity, shameful for mankind and for national leaders. How can anyone believe, after centuries of history, that wars bring peace and don’t backfire? How can we build tomorrow without cohesion, without a vision rooted in the common good? How can we continue to betray the peoples’ yearning for peace with the false propaganda of rearmament, in the vain illusion that supremacy solves problems rather than fuelling hatred and revenge? People are increasingly aware of how much money ends up in the hands of the merchants of death – funds that could build hospitals and schools, but instead destroy those that already exist!” – Pope Leo XIV
Today, as wars multiply and militaristic rhetoric spreads, Christians cannot remain silent. Disarmament is not a technical choice – it is an act of faith. It is the conviction that “peace is possible.” And we want to believe it. Not because we are naïve, but because we know – as Don Mazzolari knew – that to kill a man is to kill a brother, and to kill peace is to kill God.
Marco Felipe Perfetti
Silere non possum