Pope Francis latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (256-259), is very insightful about cruelty and injustice of war in today’s context. He begins quoting the Book of Proverbs: “Deceit is in the mind of those who plan evil, but those who counsel peace have joy”. However, some people seek peace through violence, which is often fueled by a breakdown in relations, hegemonic ambitions, power abuses, fear of others, and a tendency to regard diversity as a barrier. So he says: “War is not a ghost from the past but a constant threat. Our world is encountering growing difficulties on the slow path to peace upon which it had embarked and which had already begun to bear good fruit.”

Since conditions that favour the outbreak of wars are once again increasing, Pope Francis holds that “war is the negation of all rights and a dramatic assault on the environment. If we want true integral human development for all, we must work tirelessly to avoid war between nations and peoples. To this end, there is a need to ensure the uncontested rule of law and tireless recourse to negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as proposed by the Charter of the United Nations, which constitutes truly a fundamental juridical norm”.

He refers to the seventy-five years since the establishment of the United Nations and the experience of the first twenty years of this millennium have shown that the full application of international norms proves truly effective, and that failure to comply with them is detrimental. The Charter of the United Nations, when observed and applied with transparency and sincerity, is an obligatory reference point of justice and a channel of peace. Here there can be no room for disguising false intentions or placing the partisan interests of one country or group above the global common good. If rules are considered simply as means to be used whenever it proves advantageous, and to be ignored when it is not, uncontrollable forces are unleashed that cause grave harm to societies, to the poor and vulnerable, to fraternal relations, to the environment and to cultural treasures, with irretrievable losses for the global community.

War can easily be chosen by invoking all sorts of allegedly humanitarian, defensive or precautionary excuses, and even resorting to the manipulation of information. In recent decades, every single war has been ostensibly “justified,” Pope Francis admits. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the possibility of legitimate defence by means of military force, which involves demonstrating that certain “rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy” have been met. Yet it is easy to fall into an overly broad interpretation of this potential right. In this way, some would also wrongly justify even “preventive” attacks or acts of war that can hardly avoid entailing “evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated”.

The question is whether the development of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as the vast and expanding capabilities of modern technologies, have given war an unmanageable destructive power over large numbers of innocent populations. "Never has humanity enjoyed such power over itself," says the truth, "yet nothing guarantees that it will be used wisely." We can no longer consider war to be a viable option because the hazards will almost always outweigh the benefits. As a result, it is extremely difficult to invoke the reasonable criteria developed in previous centuries to speak about the prospect of a "just war" today. Never again war!

It should be noted that, as the globe becomes more globalized, what appears to be an instant or practical answer for one region of the world triggers a chain of violent and often hidden consequences that end up damaging the entire planet and pave the way for future battles. Because the fates of countries are so closely intertwined on the global stage, we are witnessing a "world war fought piecemeal" in today's world, rather than isolated outbreaks of war in one country or another.