The pope feels “ashamed” because he wants to spend 2% of GDP on weapons

Vatican City, 24 Mar The pope said today that he is “ashamed” because some countries want to spend 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on increasing their military spending, as NATO members have pledged to do, by hosting a women's association at the Vatican. “I was embarrassed when I read that a group of States committed to spending 2% of GDP on buying weapons, in response to what is happening. A madness,” the pontiff said in a few improvised words during his speech. Francis again referred to what he called “shameful” war in Ukraine, provoked by the invasion in Russia, and said it originated in “a culture of power, understood as domination and abuse.” “The real answer, therefore, is not more weapons, more sanctions, more political-military alliances, but a different approach, a different way of governing the world, now globalized, and of shaping international relations,” he said. “I think that for those who belong to my generation it is unbearable to see what has happened and is happening in Ukraine. But unfortunately this is the result of the old logic of power that continues to dominate the so-called geopolitics”, he stressed. For Francis, “the history of the last seventy years shows this: regional wars have never been absent, until we reach this one, which has a greater dimension and threatens the whole world”. “But the basic problem is the same, we continue to rule the world as a 'chess board', where the powerful plot their moves to extend their dominance to the detriment of others,” he added. Unfortunately, the pope explained, “economic-technocratic-military power” still dominates the world. Francis made these statements when he received a delegation from the Italian Women's Center and wanted to reflect on the war because, as he said, “women are the protagonists of this change of course, of this conversion” and those who “can do so much to help humanity not fall into decline”. “In fact, women, by acquiring power in society, can change the system, they can, as it were, convert the power of the logic of domination to the logic of service, of care,” he added.