Since the start of life on Earth, the world has been continuously teetering between war and peace. Even in most cases if peace prevails, it is mostly soured by an atmosphere of implicit moves that wreak instability and drift relations among several countries with what is referred to as "cold war".

In such an atmosphere of intermittent tensions, spending on armament has spiked with billions of dollars spent in this field, which adversely affects other fields that are vital for human sustainability and well-being such as food production, health, and education among others. This situation simply shoves innumerable countries of the world into the abyss of poverty, illiteracy, starvation, and violence.

This prevalent situation does not auger well for the future of humanity, as rational decisions channeled towards spending funds for the betterment of human life are much cheaper and affordable. Simply speaking, wars destroy all aspects of good life, namely education which is the backbone of social developments and progress that encompasses all spheres of life.

His Holiness Pope Francis has repeatedly warned against the impact of wars and conflicts spreading in various parts of the world on life, and the need to deflate tensions while establishing rapprochement among nations. He recently stated that war is synonymous to an absurdity and called for "disarming the Earth." The call to disarm the earth represents a perspicacious view of world affairs, for once this goal is fulfilled then funds spent on armament would be funneled towards the welfare of humanity.

In a letter the Pope sent recently to Italian daily newspaper "Corriere della Sera" editor-in-chief Luciano Fontana, the Pope asks Fontana to relaunch and amplify his appeal for peace and disarmament. In his letter, he states, “Human fragility has the power to make us more lucid about what endures and what passes, what brings life and what kills. Perhaps for this reason, we so often tend to deny limits and avoid fragile and wounded people: they have the power to question the direction we have chosen, both as individuals and as a community.”

He adds, “We must disarm words, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth. There is a great need for reflection, calmness, and an awareness of complexity… while war only devastates communities and the environment, without offering solutions to conflicts, diplomacy and international organizations are in need of new vitality and credibility. Religions, moreover, can draw from the spirituality of peoples to rekindle the desire for fraternity and justice, the hope for peace.”

Editorial Director of Vatican media Andrea Tornielli reacted to Pope Francis’ letter by stating that, “The world, including Europe, is rushing to rearm itself, ready to invest vast sums to fill arsenals that are already overflowing with weapons capable of destroying humanity ten times over. The Successor of Peter, made fragile and weak by illness, does not refrain from showing us the way to stop the race toward the abyss of World War III. He invites us to disarm, first and foremost, words and minds. He invites us to disarm the earth.”

Peace is the essence of the message of Christianity as Lord Jesus Christ came to bring His peace to the entire humanity.  He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." (Matthew 5:9)

May peace prevail all over the world so that people are addressed to “Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears.’ ( Joel 3:10)