In a story entitled “Pope says weapons manufacturers can’t call themselves Christian,” Reuters reports that in Turin this weekend, Pope Francis departed from his prepared speech and issued an extemporaneous condemnation of the weapons industry:
People who manufacture weapons or invest in weapons industries are hypocrites if they call themselves Christian, Pope Francis said on Sunday.
Francis issued his toughest condemnation to date of the weapons industry at a rally of thousands of young people at the end of the first day of his trip to the Italian city of Turin.
“If you trust only men you have lost,” he told the young people in a long, rambling talk about war, trust and politics after putting aside his prepared address.
“It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn’t it?” he said to applause.
He also criticized those who invest in weapons industries, saying “duplicity is the currency of today … they say one thing and do another.”
Yet in the very same speech, the Holy Father bemoaned the fact that the Allies did not use weapons to stop the Holocaust:
The great powers had the pictures of the railway lines that brought the trains to the concentration camps like Auschwitz to kill Jews, Christians, homosexuals, everybody. Why didn’t they bomb (the railway lines)?
What on earth were they supposed to “bomb” the railways with?
The Holy Father does not say.
This is not the first time Pope Francis has issued such a blanket condemnation of those who work in the defense industry. In May, he said in a speech to school children at the Vatican “many powerful people don’t want peace because they live off war” adding “Some powerful people make their living with the production of arms and sell them to one country for them to use against another country … It’s the industry of death, the greed that harms us all, the desire to have more money.”
Last year, he went even further, lumping arms manufacturers with human traffickers, saying they “fabricate death, they are merchants of death and make death into a trade.”
It is undoubtedly true that some who work in the weapons industry do so for the wrong motives. But in free societies like ours, many do so for good, and even noble motives. As the pope himself acknowledged in Turin, weapons can be used for good, as well as ill. The fact is many people who “make their living with the production of arms” serve their Creator by helping protect the innocent against unjust aggressors. Were it not for their efforts, only unjust aggressors would have weapons. We can only imagine what the world would look like today if free societies had not won the race to build the first nuclear weapon, or if we had not manufactured the arms necessary to defeat Nazi Germany, or deter Soviet aggression.
It does a great disservice to the many faithful Catholics who work in the defense industry – who build the weapons that deter war and protect innocent lives – for the Holy Father to say they are all consumed by “greed” and “live off war.”
They don’t consider themselves “merchants of death,” but proprietors of peace.
from AEI » Latest Content http://ift.tt/1GCNnA0
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