Pope Warns Europe’s Rearmament Risks Undermining Social Spending

Pope Leo XIV has criticized a European rush to rearm, warning it is diverting resources from education and health, as he reiterated his message of peace.

“Over the past year, the increase in military spending worldwide, and particularly in Europe, has been enormous,” the pope said in a speech at the Sapienza University in Rome on Thursday. “Let us not call defense a rearmament that increases tensions and insecurity, deprives investment in education and health, undermines trust in diplomacy, and enriches elites who care nothing for the common good.”