Nations should redirect money spent on armaments to invest in education, Pope Francis said on Tuesday (21) in an annual peace message, condemning rising military costs at the expense of social services.
In his message for the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Peace, which is celebrated on January 1, Francis also called for a better balance between a free market economy and the need to help those in need and protect the environment.
He devoted about a third of the four-page message to education, saying there has been a “significant reduction” in spending on education and training around the world, while military spending has increased beyond late-Cold War levels, and it seems “ grow exorbitantly”.
He did not give any sources of information about these numbers.
“The time has come, then, for governments to develop economic policies aimed at reversing the proportion of public resources spent on education and weapons,” he said in the message, sent to heads of state and international organizations.
“The pursuit of a genuine process of international disarmament can only be beneficial to the development of peoples and nations, freeing up better-used financial resources – for health, schools, infrastructure, land care and so on,” he said.
Expense redirection
Francisco called for disarmament, a ban on nuclear weapons and said military funds should also be diverted to fair distribution of Covid-19 vaccines and research to prevent future pandemics.
“Despite countless efforts aimed at constructive dialogue between nations, the deafening noise of war and conflict is intensifying. While diseases of pandemic proportions are spreading, the effects of climate change and environmental degradation are worsening, the tragedy of hunger and thirst is increasing,” he said in the message.
Weapons, education and political position
The proportions of military spending and education vary from country to country, but positions on what to increase and what to cut tend to follow party lines.
A Pew Research Center poll in 2019 showed that in the United States 84% of Democrats favored more education spending versus 56% of Republicans and that 56% of Republicans wanted more military spending versus 26% of Democrats.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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