In the war between Russia and Ukraine, as in all conflicts, "disarmament is the only adequate and decisive response to these problems, as the Magisterium of the Church maintains. Read, for example, St. John's encyclical Pacem in terris XXIII. It is a question of general disarmament and subject to effective controls. In this sense, it does not seem correct to ask the attacked person to give up their weapons and not to ask, even before, those who are attacking him ".
Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin says this in an interview with Limes.
Parolin recalls the Church's position on arms: "As for the use of arms, the catechism of the Catholic Church provides for self-defense. Peoples have the right to defend themselves, if attacked. But this legitimate armed defense must be exercised within certain conditions. that the catechism itself enumerates: that all other means to put an end to aggression have proved impracticable or ineffective; that there are well-founded reasons for success; that the use of weapons does not cause evils and disorders more serious than those to be eliminated.
Finally, the catechism affirms that the power of modern means of destruction plays an important role in evaluating this problem.
For these reasons, Pope Francis, in the encyclical Fratelli tutti affirms that one can no longer think of war as a solution, because the risks - the Vatican Secretary of State underlines - will probably always exceed the hypothetical utility attributed to it " .
To say that the Pope is pro-Russian is a "simplification" that does not take into account the fact that "Pope Francis condemned the Russian aggression of Ukraine right from the start, with unequivocal words, he never put the aggressor and the attacked on the same level. nor was it or appeared equidistant ", concludes Cardinal Parolin.
