Holy See at UN: Nuclear elimination is urgent moral imperative. Reject deterrence; AI risks alarming. Divert resources from arms to peace.
Newsroom (22/10/2025, Gaudium Press ) The Holy See on Tuesday declared the elimination of nuclear weapons “a possibility and an urgent moral imperative,” rejecting deterrence as “morally indefensible and strategically unsustainable.”
Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the UN, delivered the statement during the First Committee’s Thematic Discussion at the 80th General Assembly session in New York on Oct. 21.
Rejecting the Threat of Annihilation
“Peace cannot be built on the threat of total destruction,” Caccia said, decrying an “alarming resurgence in rhetoric threatening the use of nuclear weapons” and efforts to expand arsenals under flawed deterrence logic that breeds fear and instability.
Eighty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he called their “suffering and destruction” a “sobering reminder” of nuclear weapons’ catastrophic potential and humanity’s duty to avert repetition.
Urgent Calls to Action
Caccia pressed nuclear-armed states to honor Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), negotiating “in good faith” to reduce and eliminate stockpiles. He urged universal accession to the NPT and Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), alongside advancing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), fissile material controls, and robust verification.
AI Risks and Moral Defeat
Particularly alarming, he warned, is integrating artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and cyber technologies into nuclear command structures — technologies that “shorten decision-making windows, reduce human oversight, and increase the risk of miscalculation.”
Diverting “enormous resources” to armaments amid widespread suffering represents “a profound moral defeat,” Caccia said. True security demands a “human-centered vision” rooted in dialogue, fraternity, and respect for every person’s God-given dignity.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News
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