In his annual peace message, Pope Francis also called for a better balance between a free market economy and the need to help the poor and safeguard the environment.
Francis urged for a greater balance between a free market economy and the need to help the poor and safeguard the environment in a message released on Tuesday for the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Peace, which is observed on January 1.
He focused primarily on the need to invest in education, dedicating about a third of his four-page message to the topic, saying that education and training spending had been “significantly reduced” globally, while military spending had increased beyond levels seen at the end of the Cold War and “seem certain to grow exorbitantly.”
“It is past time for nations to create economic strategies targeted at inverting the percentage of public expenditures spent on education and weaponry,” he wrote in the letter to leaders of state and international organizations.
“The pursuit of a genuine process of international disarmament can only be good for the development of peoples and nations,” he continued, “freeing up financial resources better utilized for health care, schools, infrastructure, land care, and so on.”
The amounts of military and education spending vary in every country, but party lines often emerge when deciding what to boost and what to eliminate.
He addressed the current terrible epidemic as well as the devastating effects of climate change, adding that “The deafening cacophony of war and conflict is rising, despite various initiatives aimed at the constructive discussion between nations. While pandemic diseases are growing, the effects of climate change and environmental degradation are worsening, and hunger and thirst are becoming more tragic, “In the message, he stated.
