the Holy See participated in the First
Preparatory Committee for the 2015
Review Conference of the Parties to the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons. The Church?s position
was that: “It cannot be considered morally
sufficient to draw down the stocks of
superfluous nuclear weapons while
modernizing nuclear arsenals and
investing vast sums to insure their future
production and maintenance. The current
course will ensure the perpetuation of
these weapons indefinitely.”
Moreover, the Holy See is a founding
Member State of the International
Atomic Energy Agency. In 2012, at its
56th General Conference, the Holy
See stated, inter alia, that “Every step
on the non-proliferation and
disarmament agenda must be built on
the principles of the preeminent and
inherent value of human dignity and
the centrality of the human person,
which constitute the basis of
international humanitarian law.” This
focus on the human person and
human dignity, as we shall see shortly,
lies at the core of our topic today.
Let us understand the half-century
context of the Encyclical: One of the
great lessons, if not the greatest
lesson, that humanity learnt,
especially, from the two world wars
(1914-1918, 1939-1945), was that
safeguarding the well-being and
interest of humanity, and especially