Pope Leo Wants America To Stop Arming the World
Leo is demanding that Catholics — and everyone else — finally take responsibility for the guns and bombs American taxes subsidize.
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On Tuesday, July 23, Pope Leo climbed into a small sedan and headed back to Rome from Castel Gandolfo.
Reporters pressing around the gates expected small talk about his 16‑day working vacation.
Instead, Leo decided to speak about the blood‑soaked economy that undergirds global politics.
“We must encourage everyone to leave weapons behind, and to leave behind the money‑making that is behind every war,” he told the journalists gathered outside the summer residence.
He wasn’t improvising.
Throughout his first months as the first American pope, Leo has been direct about the moral corruption of the arms industry and its impact on our collective conscience.
On Tuesday, he sharpened the critique: the arms race is not an abstract geopolitical debate; it’s a business that turns human beings into “tools without any value.”
Those words are a gut punch to the country of his birth. The United States controls roughly 40 percent of the global arms market.
Americans work in factories that build the drones now buzzing over Gaza and Ukraine. It is easy to cheer an American pope when he hoists a guitar and wears White Sox socks; it is harder to hear him condemn our livelihood. But Leo isn’t playing to the cheap seats.
By reminding us that “we are all God’s children, created in God’s image,” he is demanding that Catholics — and everyone else — finally take responsibility for the guns and bombs our taxes subsidize.
His comments come amid fresh evidence that political leaders see war as a growth industry.
The same week the pope left Castel Gandolfo, Congress quietly approved billions more for weapons systems, while European capitals celebrated new fighter‑jet contracts.
When Leo told reporters there are “many places” he would like to visit, but that jetting into a war zone isn’t “the formula for finding an answer,” he was hinting that moral courage doesn’t come from symbolic trips. It comes from dismantling the economic incentives for violence.
Where do we go from here? Leo’s call isn’t for naïve pacifism. He speaks from within the Catholic just‑war tradition, which allows for self‑defense but insists that every human life — Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli, Palestinian — is of infinite worth.
His challenge to “leave weapons behind” invites Americans to imagine an economy built on renewable energy and caregiving instead of missiles and missiles’ parts.
That’s not a utopian fantasy; it’s the only path that will keep our children out of body bags.
Pope Leo’s sharpest interventions often come at unexpected moments — an unscheduled interview at a gate, an off‑hand comment to a reporter.
Tuesday was one of those moments. If we shrug off his plea as mere papal chatter, we will remain complicit in the arms race he condemns.
But if we take him seriously and begin the long work of demilitarizing our budgets and our imaginations, we might just honor the courage it took for him to speak the truth so plainly.
Letters from Leo is 100% sustained by your generosity. If you find value in my work, please consider supporting me by becoming a paid subscriber today.
Paid subscriptions start at only $6.67 per month and will get you full access to the ongoing Fath and the Democratic Party essays and this multi-part series on the life and formation of Pope Leo. The third part of that series was released Monday.
Do you prefer a one-time gift? Donate here instead of subscribing.
The Pope needs to give JD a lesson.
I have been so impressed by his leadership in this moment. Beyond thankful for his bright light in this dark time