"Over the past year, the growth in military spending worldwide, and particularly in Europe, has been enormous: let us not call 'defense' a rearmament that increases tensions and insecurity, depletes investments in education and healthcare, undermines trust in diplomacy, and enriches elites who care nothing for the common good. We must also monitor the development and application of artificial intelligence in the military and civilian spheres so that it does not deprive human decisions of responsibility." Pope Leo XIV said this during a visit to La Sapienza University in Rome . "What kind of world are we leaving behind?" the pontiff added. "A world distorted by wars and words of war."
"I accepted with great joy the invitation to meet with the Sapienza university community. Your university is known as a center of excellence in various disciplines and, at the same time, for its commitment to the right to education, including those with limited financial resources, persons with disabilities, prisoners, and those who have fled war zones. For example, I greatly appreciate the fact that the Diocese of Rome and Sapienza have signed an agreement to open a university humanitarian corridor from the Gaza Strip," the Pontiff continued.
Leo addressed a special message to young students: "There's also a sad side to anxiety: we mustn't hide the fact that many young people are struggling. Everyone experiences difficult times; some, however, may feel like they never end." "Today," the Pope said, "this increasingly depends on the blackmail of expectations and the pressure to perform. It's the pervasive lie of a distorted system, which reduces people to numbers, exacerbating competitiveness and abandoning us to spirals of anxiety. This very spiritual malaise experienced by many young people reminds us that we are not the sum of what we possess; we are a desire, not an algorithm," the Pontiff concluded.
(Unioneonline)
