Archbishop Paul Gallagher Holy See signs and ratifies anti-nuclear weapon treaty
The Holy See has ratified and signed the new UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The high-level Vatican diplomat who signed the treaty told a UN conference that the Catholic Church supports efforts “to move progressively toward a world free of nuclear weapons”.
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican foreign minister, signed the treaty. More than 40 other countries signed it as well, and it will come into force 90 days after at least 50 countries both sign and ratify it.
Archbishop Gallagher addressed the 10th Conference on Facilitating Entry into Force of Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, a treaty the Vatican adhered to in 1996.
He said the Vatican believes that “a nuclear test ban, nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament are closely linked and must be achieved as quickly as possible under effective international control”.
But delays in getting eight more countries to ratify the treaty mean that it still has not entered into force. “Two decades without the treaty’s entry into force have been two decades lost in our common goal of a world without nuclear weapons,” Archbishop Gallagher said.
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Political corruption allows Mafia to flourish
When politics becomes all about partisan interests and secret deals, it leaves behind its true vocation and becomes susceptible to the same influences of corruption that allow the Mafia to flourish, Pope Francis said.
Authentic politics is “an eminent form of charity”, which strives to ensure a future of peace and full dignity for every person, whereas “a deviated politics” no longer listens to the conscience, but “confuses truth with lies and profits from the role of public responsibility it has been given”, the Pope said. Meeting with members of Italy’s anti-Mafia parliamentary commission, Pope Francis praised Italian laws that seek to involve the government and citizens, religious communities and volunteer associations in the fight against organised crime.
In particular he cited the wisdom of provisions whereby some of the convicted Mafia members’ property, confiscated by the government, is turned over to non-profit groups to provide training and jobs to students and the unemployed.
Corruption, poverty and social injustice are the “fertile fields” upon which organised crime grows and thrives, he said.
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No pardon for child abusers
Pope Francis has endorsed an approach of “zero tolerance” toward all members of the Church guilty of sexually abusing minors or vulnerable adults.
Having listened to abuse survivors and having made what he described as a mistake in approving a more lenient set of sanctions against an Italian priest abuser, the Pope said he has decided whoever has been proven guilty of abuse has no right to an appeal.
“Why? Simply because the person who does this (sexually abuses minors) is sick. It is a sickness,” he told his advisory commission on child protection, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
The Pope said he wanted to speak more informally to the members, who include lay and religious experts in the fields of psychology, sociology, theology and law in relation to abuse and protection.
The Catholic Church has been “late” in facing and, therefore, properly addressing the sin of sexual abuse by its members, the Pope said, and the commission has had to “swim against the tide” because of a lack of awareness.