Pax Christi: With the nuclear rearme we walk towards the annihilation of humanity

The director of Catholic Non violence Initiative, Linked to Pax Christi Internacional, Nicolás Paz Mayor, says that with the nuclear rearme it walks “to the annihilation of humanity.”

“It is absolutely incoherent to invest in armament to prevent a conflict, but it seems to us that non -violence is a naive attitude and that rearmament is the most rational,” he explains in conversation with ACI Press.

Paz Mayor is a member of the Coordination Committee of the Catholic Institute for the Noviolence, opened in Rome in September, which is also part of the American cardinal Robert W. Mcelroy, who today Tuesday, March 11 takes possession as a new Archbishop of Washington.

The increase in defense expenditure at European scale is already a reality. Last week, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that the era of the “European Rearme” was going to begin with measures that will mobilize up to 800,000 million euros in the continent.

This shows that what predominates in the mainstream is the belief “that violence is a tool that works,” he says.

However, in the Catholic Institute for Noviolence they have several academic research that point to the opposite.

Paz Mayor gives the example of the Academic research led by experts Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, from Columbia University, about the effectiveness of different civil resistance campaigns.

In addition, Marie Dennis is another of the most authorized voices in anti -art campaigns.

The expert and former president of Pax Christi International, whom Cardinal Mcelroy has wanted him to accompany him in his inauguration, has experience that the most successful social movements are those that maintain as discipline non -violence, even when they are subject to repression or torture.

For Paz Mayor, the rearme of Europe is something serious, especially because it is completely “contrary” to the principles that guided the birth of the European Union after World War II.

“It was an institutional, non -violent response, to organize coexistence. But now we have entered into a political dynamic in which, instead of organizing coexistence, what we want is to end it, ”he adds.

12,121 Nuclear weapons in the world

Currently, there are 12,121 nuclear weapons in the world, according to the data of Yearbook 2024 of the International Institute for Peace Studies of Stockholm (SIPRI). An “aberrant figure”, also affects the associated professor of the Faculty of Philosophy and the University Master in Family Guidance and Mediation of the Pontifical University of Salamanca.

“The horizon of the possibility of using nuclear weapons leads to the self -destruction of humanity itself. There have already been moments in our history where we have been very close to this and we have not learned, ”he says.

In this sense, it makes it clear that political debate is not “between violence or non -violence; The decision is between total or non -violence annihilation. ”

In addition, he warns that if the military escalation continues to increase, it is because there is “a problem, of moral leadership.”

“Pope Francis is being in the world. What happens is that it is very alone, ”he concludes.

Pax Christi International is a global pacifist movement that works in favor of peace, respect for human rights, justice and reconciliation.