RomeLeo named European rearmament a “betrayal of diplomacy.” European spending hit $864 billion in 2025, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said, as NATO members raced to meet a new 5%-of-GDP target.
Leo’s first encyclical, expected within weeks, will address AI governance and autonomous weapons.
Sources: Euronews English, Yahoo! Finance, The Hindu, The News International, Arab News
THE PAPAL TRADITION
Modern popes have condemned arms races since Pius XII denounced atomic weapons in 1948. Paul VI told the UN in 1965 'no more war, war never again,' and John XXIII's 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris argued the nuclear age made just-war doctrine nearly inoperable. Leo's framing extends a 75-year through-line, not a personal stance.
THE 5% TARGET
NATO's old benchmark was 2% of GDP, set in 2014 after Crimea. The new 5% target — 3.5% core defense plus 1.5% related infrastructure — would more than double allied military budgets. Only the United States and Poland currently approach it; for Germany or Italy, hitting 5% means reallocating sums comparable to their entire health budgets.
WHAT AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS ACTUALLY ARE
A *lethal autonomous weapon system* — LAWS in the UN jargon — selects and engages targets without human intervention at the firing decision. The distinction that matters is between *human-in-the-loop* (operator approves each strike), *human-on-the-loop* (operator can veto), and *human-out-of-the-loop* (machine fires unilaterally). The third category is what Vatican diplomacy has been pressing to ban since 2014.
THE GENEVA STALEMATE
Negotiations at the UN's Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in Geneva have run since 2014 without binding text. Russia, the United States, India, the UK, and Israel — the states with the most advanced autonomous-weapons programs — have blocked a treaty. The Vatican is one of the most consistent voices for a binding ban; it has no army to constrain.
THE ENCYCLICAL AS INSTRUMENT
An encyclical is the highest form of papal teaching short of a dogmatic definition — addressed to the whole Church and binding on Catholic moral conscience. Francis used Laudato Si' (2015) to reframe climate as a moral question; the document shifted episcopal politics in dozens of countries. An encyclical on AI and autonomous war would put 1.4 billion Catholics' bishops on record.
WHY 'BETRAYAL' IS A LOADED WORD
In Vatican diplomatic vocabulary, *tradimento* — betrayal — is reserved for the abandonment of a process, not a disagreement over policy. By using it for European rearmament, Leo is signalling that he views the diplomatic track on Ukraine as having been deliberately closed, not exhausted. The word travels further in Italian and Spanish ecclesial circles than the English translation conveys.