In the foreword to his new book, Pope Leo XIV calls for peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons. Source: EWTN News.
The book, Disarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift, was published in Italian yesterday by the Vatican Publishing House Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
Edited by Alessandro Banfi, the book is a collection of Leo XIV’s addresses and reflections on peace since his election to the papacy in 2025.
The Pope also invoked in his foreword American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan as well as Servants of God Dorothy Day, Floribert Bwana Chui, and Giorgio La Pira.
Leo began the foreword with what had been his first words as pontiff, proclaimed from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica: “Peace be with you.”
He explained the theological significance of those words, spoken by Christ after his resurrection, and decried the modern tendency for war.
“This was also the first gift the risen Christ offered to his friends and to the whole world: peace,” Leo wrote. “That gift, however, did not come cheap.”
“Today, a good 103 states are involved in some way in a war on Earth. Weapons boom and kill in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Sudan, in Myanmar, in Yemen, in Congo, and in many other situations.”
He also referred to his predecessors Pope Francis and Sts Paul VI and John Paul II, who also called for peace and nuclear disarmament:
“Especially after the terrible consequences of the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the recourse to war is ever more an ‘adventure with no return,’ as St John Paul II stressed.”
In his foreword, the Pope referenced Dylan, who criticised the manufacture of nuclear bombs during the Cold War in his 1963 song Go Away You Bomb.
“As singer-songwriter and poet Bob Dylan wrote, figuratively addressing the atomic bomb, in one of his poetic compositions: ‘I hate you cause yer man-made and man-owned an’ man-handled,’” Leo wrote.
The Pope also said the threat of nuclear catastrophe looms large unless action is taken.
“History has already seen us come close to nuclear catastrophe.”
“A world in which machines, albeit sophisticated and faster than us, are the ones to decide to bomb defenceless people would be truly frightening,” Leo wrote.
An English edition of the book will be published in the coming months.
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Pope Leo XIV urges peace and nuclear disarmament in new book foreword (By Ishmael Adibuah, EWTN News)
