This year, however, it is more likely to be dismissed as an absurd idea.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas will be decided on the ground by the cache of weapons they have accumulated. The response of their allies has already been to make more and more sophisticated weapons available to them.

Meanwhile, arms manufacturers cannot keep up with the demand to sustain the war in Ukraine, to support other military operations, and to serve a host of geopolitical ends.

In a time of financial stringency Australia has committed itself to enormous expense to provide nuclear submarines. Wars themselves are becoming more lethal with the development of drones and other weapons.

As international and national politics become more polarised and violent in tone, national leaders increasingly see it as reasonable and even obligatory to compete with other nations in seeking access to more destructive weapons with which to defend the nation.

It is common sense to believe that only if you are armed to the teeth will you be safe from attack and will peace be promoted.

Taking for granted the destructive power of weapons

And yet, as so often in human affairs, the cloak of common sense proves to be moth-eaten when more closely examined.

There are two main reasons for this.

First, when nations stockpile weapons powerful and numerous enough to destroy human life in the world many times over, the destructive power of the weapons becomes taken for granted.

People cease to be shocked by it. As a result, the risk of a paranoid or reckless leader using them without regard to the consequences grows higher rather than diminishes.

In such an event it is also more likely that other nations will respond by using their own weapons.

Even if nations are deterred by others' possession of nuclear weapons, other weapons are powerful enough to destroy cities and to drive peoples into exile.

Neither the possession of nuclear weapons by Russia and the allies of Ukraine prevented Russia from invading Ukraine and Ukraine from resisting the invasion at the cost of so many soldiers' and civilians' lives and of the nation's economy.

Because conventional weapons and drones are now seen as normal, the wholesale destruction of civilized life is also taken for granted.

The dangers of a world in which peace depends on nations matching one another in the destructive power of their weapons are evident in current international conflicts.

In Ukraine Mr Putin threatens to withdraw from treaties based to limit the spread and use of nuclear weapons.

Strategists, too, talk openly about how Ukraine's allies should respond if they are used. North Korea also possesses nuclear weapons and leans on their possession for their security.

The rivalry between China and the United States, both nuclear powers, too, risks descending into open conflict in which Australia could be involved.

Pope Francis links personal conversion with international disarmament

Second, the rush to amass more and more expensive weapons ignores the opportunities to shape a better world, which are lost by spending heavily on arms.

The money could have been allocated to public transport, hospitals, schools, care for the aging, more generous benefits and social housing, for example.

Instead, the profits from arms sales, often magnified by lax oversight from government departments, go to large corporations and contribute to inequality.

The expenditure on arms then becomes self-reinforcing and further impedes the ability and willingness of governments to fund just social programmes.

In nations that encourage large munitions firms, weapon making becomes a significant part of the economy. Disarmament is then seen as a threat to employment.

This diversion of resources to the manufacture and use of ever more destructive weapons is now a critical threat to the survival of the world as we know it.

It directly threatens global warming through the emissions generated in the manufacture and use of weapons.

More importantly, it diverts focus from the imminent danger of climate change and from the urgent need to restructure economies, transport and manufacturing in order to prevent emissions rising above their already damaging levels.

In making the weapons and fighting the wars we deem necessary to preserve a world worth living in, we shall surely destroy it.

The irrationality of an arms race based on a balance of terror and the terrible suffering caused by modern wars have led Pope Francis, like his predecessors, to condemn the arms trade and the reliance by governments on weapons of mass destruction.

He also points out the connection between personal conversion and international disarmament. If nations store up weapons out of fear, they may reflect personal relationships marked by fear, defensiveness and retaliation.

Non-violence must take root in our most intimate relationships if it's to flower in our global relationships.

Disarmament Week may seem to be an absurdity. Armament, however, is surely a lunacy.

• Andrew Hamilton SJ is a writer at Jesuit Social Services in Melbourne (Australia) and the consulting editor of Eureka Street, where this article first appeared.
• Republished with the author's permission.

Seeing this, one of Jesus' disciples "put his hand to his sword, drew it, and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.'"

Tragically, throughout the centuries much of humanity has failed to heed the Lord's wisdom.

And worse, today's swords are far more lethal. Bullets, bombs, missiles, tanks, land minds, aircraft carriers, fighter jets inflict far more carnage than ancient swords could ever do. And modern nuclear weapons could obliterate life on earth.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, (http://bit.ly/1TW3Gj5) world military expenditure was estimated at more than $1.7 trillion in 2014.

President Obama's proposed fiscal year 2017 Department of Defense basic budget comes in at a whopping $582.7 billion. More than the next seven largest military budgets combined - including China, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

As reported by the New York Times (http://nyti.ms/1XgNZWD), American foreign arms sales rose to $36.2 billion in 2014, continuing to ensure the U.S.'s position as the world's single largest arms merchant - controlling more than 50 percent of the weapon's market.

Many of these weapons continue to be sold to poor nations like Chad, diverting precious money that should instead be going to meet people's basic needs.

Speaking to a group of young people in Turin, Italy in 2015 Pope Francis said, "There is the hypocrisy of speaking about peace and producing arms, and even selling weapons to this one, who is at war with that one."

Seeking fresh insights to counter the worn-out, death-dealing argument that powerful militaries and lethal weapons are needed to defend one's nation, I turned to Eli McCarthy, PhD, director of justice and peace for the Conference of Major Superiors of Men.

"It's unrealistic and unwise to keep arming groups in conflict situations. The ‘war on terror' for the last 15 years has exacerbated the problems and overall failed to get at the root causes of conflict," said McCarthy.

Instead, the U.S. government and international community need to invest much more in training and research on nonviolent resistance strategies like unarmed civilian protection, he noted.

"There are many courageous persons in regions of conflict risking their lives engaging in trauma-healing, restorative justice, inter-religious dialogue, mediation, early warning systems and nonviolent resistance."

McCarthy said creative diplomatic efforts including all key stakeholders, and genuinely addressing the basic needs of people are essential to easing tensions and conflict.

He also emphasized the importance of investing in industry transition in U.S. communities that rely on the arms industry for jobs.

We need to use humanizing language towards all, and work to reduce cultural marginalization, added McCarthy.

"Justice, right reason, and the recognition of man's dignity cry out insistently for a cessation to the arms race," wrote St. John XXIII in his prophetic 1963 encyclical Pacem In Terris ("Peace on Earth").

Let each of us pray and work for the day that justice, right reason, and the recognition of the dignity of every person prevails over the evil of the arms race, the arms trade and military arms in general.

May the Spirit of the nonviolent Jesus lead us to disarm our hearts. For only people with nonviolent hearts are capable of building a nonviolent world.

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. His keynote address, "Advancing the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century," has been well received by diocesan and parish gatherings from Santa Clara, Calif. to Baltimore, Md. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net.

Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's Secretary for Relations with States, told the conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency that the Vatican "shares the thoughts and sentiments of most men and women of good will who aspire to a total elimination of nuclear weapons."

Speaking in Vienna to 159 delegates to the IAEA from nations around the world, Mamberti also exhorted nations to look skeptically at the use of any sort of military force, not just nuclear weapons.

"At the difficult crossroads at which humanity finds itself — a crossroads characterized by an increasingly strict interdependence on the economic, political, social and environmental level — one should ask: does the use of force represent a sustainable solution in time?" Mamberti asked.

"It seems, in fact, only to increase mutual distrust and to refer to a distorted sense of priorities that commits significant resources in a short-sighted way," he continued. "The temptation to face new situations with old systems must be rejected.

"We must redefine the priorities and hierarchies of values by which to mobilize resources towards objectives of moral, cultural and economic development, since development, solidarity and justice are nothing other than the real name for peace, for a lasting peace in time and space."

The IAEA, which reports to the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council, is an independent agency established in the 1950s to promote so-called peaceful uses of nuclear power.

Quoting from both the current pope, Francis, and Pope John XXIII, Mamberti said frankly that "global security must not rely on nuclear weapons." Citing at length from John XXIII's 1963 encyclical letter Pacem in Terris, he said "nuclear weapons must be banned."

"Even though written 50 years ago, these words seem to reflect the beginning of the 21st century," Mamberti said. "We should ask ourselves whether we really live in a more secure and safer world today compared with that of a few decades ago."

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

Prensa Latina

Image: UN Photo