Pope Leo criticized rising European military spending, which increased last year by its highest level since the end of the Cold War amid pressure from Donald Trump, calling the trend a betrayal of diplomacy, Reuters reports.
The pontiff, who has recently drawn Trump’s ire after criticizing the Iran war, addressed university students in Rome, urging them not to frame such increases as defence spending. He warned that the world was being “maimed by wars.”
“Let us not call ‘defence’ a rearmament that increases tensions and insecurity, impoverishes investments in education and health, betrays trust in diplomacy, and enriches elites who care nothing for the common good,” the Pope said.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, military expenditure across Europe rose 14% in 2025 to $864 billion, driven by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and rearmament efforts among European NATO members.
Trump has repeatedly urged European allies to increase defence spending and in February signed an executive order prioritizing US weapons sales to countries with higher military budgets. At his urging, NATO in 2025 endorsed a new defence spending target of 5% of GDP for member states.
Pope Leo has increasingly spoken out in recent weeks against the direction of global leadership. On May 14, he addressed students at Rome’s Sapienza University, the largest university in Europe.
He also warned about the use of artificial intelligence in warfare, citing conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran as evidence of what he described as “the inhumane evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation.”
The Pope urged the university’s approximately 110,000 students not to “close themselves within ideologies and national borders.”
“Together with me and with many brothers and sisters, be artisans of true peace,” the pontiff said.
By Vafa Guliyeva
