“International relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation, and the parading of stockpiles of arms”. This is the alarm raised by Pope Francis in his address to the participants in the International Symposium on Disarmament, organized at the Vatican by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. According to the Pontiff, “weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, create nothing but a false sense of security. They cannot constitute the basis for peaceful coexistence between members of the human family, which must rather be inspired by an ethics of solidarity”. For the Pope, “essential” in this regard is the witness given by the “Hibakusha”, the survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with other victims of nuclear arms testing. “May their prophetic voice serve as a warning, above all for coming generations”, the Pope said. “Weapons that result in the destruction of the human race are senseless even from a tactical standpoint”, he noted, stressing that “while true science is always at the service of humanity, in our time we are increasingly troubled by the misuse of certain projects originally conceived for a good cause”. “Suffice it to note that nuclear technologies are now spreading also through digital communications, and that the instruments of international law have not prevented new states from joining those already in possession of nuclear weapons”, Pope Francis remarked, adding that “the resulting scenarios are deeply disturbing if we consider the challenges of contemporary geopolitics, like terrorism or asymmetric warfare”.