War is no longer a distant noise: it shapes public choices, influences political debates, and alters economic priorities. In 2024, global military spending exceeded $2.7 trillion, while conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and other regions directly affect civilian populations. In this context, the 81st General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference, held in Assisi on 19 November 2025, approved the Pastoral Note entitled “Educating for a Disarmed and Disarming Peace”. The text, released today, does not offer an escape from reality, but invites a serious engagement with present tensions, grounded in the centrality of Christ, “our peace”. The Note affirms that peace is neither an abstraction nor a precarious diplomatic balance, but a path requiring cultural conversion and coherent choices. Reiterating the guidance of Pope Francis in Fratelli tutti, it stresses that the disproportionality of contemporary weapons renders traditional criteria for a “just war” inapplicable. It calls for a reading of conflicts within a complex global framework, marked by cultural and social fragility. The invitation is to avoid reductive interpretations and to cultivate a perspective capable of grasping the full weight of situations, overcoming oppositional schemas and maintaining the sobriety demanded by the Gospel of peace.
Educating for peace: from the family to the digital realm
The central section highlights education as a shared responsibility among families, schools, ecclesial communities, and civil society. The family is presented as “the first school for peace education”, a place where dialogue and conflict management are learned. Schools are called to become “educating communities”, capable of promoting cooperation, critical thinking, and respect for pluralism. Significant attention is given to the digital world, described as “an environment that reshapes the perception of reality”, capable of generating “interpretations of events detached from the facts”.
The document also includes a reflection on artificial intelligence, whose growing capacity to produce content alternative to reality risks “erasing the distinction between what exists and what is artificially constructed”.
The Note recalls the words of Pope Francis at the 2024 G7 Summit, where he described AI as “a fascinating and formidable tool”. Educating for peace therefore entails fostering responsibility in communication and care in the use of language, avoiding the risk that the internet and digital technologies become “tools of division” rather than spaces suited to “building human fraternity”. Hence the call to develop initiatives that “transform fear of the other into opportunities for encounter”, helping to prevent rigidity and polarisation, and restoring the primacy of relationships in building the fabric of community life.
From proclamation to practice: concrete pathways
The conclusion opens up an operational horizon that does not ignore the complexity of conflicts, but encourages a realistic reading of them. It underscores the need to have “the courage to pursue alternative paths that give substance to the far-sighted realism of caring for human dignity and creation”, recalling that experiences such as conscientious objection and civil service marked the transition from the logic of “if you want peace, prepare for war” to that of “if you want peace, prepare for peace”. The Note states that:
compulsory civil service would represent “an investment in offering future generations the opportunity to practise care for human dignity and the environment”.
Among the paths suggested is financial objection, which calls for divestment from institutions involved in arms production. The Note also dedicates attention to spiritual assistance within the Armed Forces, advocating for forms that support a “spirituality of peace commensurate with the task”. It further notes that the European Union shows “another path is possible, that the logic of violence is not inevitable”, urging decisions that do not feed into scenarios of war. Other areas include restorative justice, defined as a practice “aimed at healing relationships in contexts of conflict”, and care for creation as an essential dimension of peace. Responsibility now lies with dioceses, parishes, and movements, who are called to translate these directives into verifiable decisions, capable of making an impact on the social fabric through an ecclesial style that is sober, attentive, and oriented towards building peace in the present time.
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