I sent this 9 page commentary to the Vatican Press Office this morning. I recommend passing this on to every political party, every newspaper and every congressman.
It is seldom in life that you come to face to face with Absolute Evil and overcome it. We did it in defeating the Axis Powers. Now it is time to do it again. For life on our precious planet to survive, humans must restructure our economic, political and social lives. The Big Three did this in mobilizing resources to bring military victory over the Axis Powers. It is our turn now. This will be a world without poverty, war or global warming. Previously, life could go in the old-fashioned way disregarding religious or humanitarian considerations. Not anymore. There is no planet B. We are all in this together. Business as usual even with some major reforms are not enough. Humans must abolish war and inequality and reverse global warming. Working together we can get to there from here.
Sincerely,
Ed
Pope Leo Wants to End War
On January 19, 2026 Pope Leo made a statement looking to end war everywhere forever. Pope Leo has to ask for specific actions if his announcement will make a difference in the world.
Many famous people have told the world that they want to end war. Except for Woodrow Wilson, none have advocated specific actions. Make vague wishes and you get nothing. Tell people what you want to do and some will join you at the barricades.
Humans must end war or war will end humans. It is not only the hippies and left-wing college professors who say that. Many establishment people advocated war abolition: Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, General Smedley Butler, Pope Paul VI, Henry Stimson, Albert Speer and General Douglas MacArthur, JFK and now, Pope Leo XIV.
On Monday, Jan. 19, three Catholic cardinals — Blase Cupich of Chicago, Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., and Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey — amplified an address given Jan. 9 by Pope Leo XIV to the Vatican’s diplomatic corps.
“We renounce war as an instrument for narrow national interests and proclaim that military action must be seen only as a last resort in extreme situations, not a normal instrument of national policy,” said the cardinals, each of whom were staunch allies of Pope Francis and were present at the conclave that elected Leo. “We seek a foreign policy that respects and advances the right to human life, religious liberty, and the enhancement of human dignity throughout the world, especially through economic assistance.”
What can people do now?
I offer five thoughts:
1) A list showing actions that Americans can start,
2) A powerful statement from General Douglas MacArthur,
3) Statements from establishment people who have sought peace,
4) A 32 minute Pax Christi presentation advocating major changes in the world’s armed forces, and,
5) A visionary thought from Tommy James and the Shondells.
Americans can begin the path to lasting peace by:
1) Starting a Second Marshall Plan that will end poverty everywhere and reverse global warming,
2) Taxing arms sales,
(If you have enough money to kill some people, you have money to help others. Proceeds would go to funding the Second Marshall Plan.)
3) Beginning a moratorium on nuclear weapons research,
4) Reducing the bloated US military budget by 50%,
(The US defense budget is equal to the next 9 countries in line.)
5) Training our armed forces for disaster relief,
6) Establishing a cabinet level War Abolition Department,
7) Reducing our nuclear weapons to 1,000, and,
8) Reducing our overseas military bases from 750 to 100,
9) Negotiating for all the world’s nuclear weapons to go off hair trigger alert,
10) Reforming Income Tax Code where only major corporations and families with more than $250,000 annual income would pay federal income tax,
11) Abolish the War on Drugs which has been ineffective and corrupt. Look at the drug laws in Portugal, the Netherlands and Uruguay,
12) Establish a world-wide FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Program) for famines, fires, wars, droughts, floods recovery for every country,
13) Regulate artificial intelligence, and,
14) Fund alternative energy.
General Douglas MacArthur’s address to the US Congress on April 19, 1951 is eloquent.
Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature, and all material and cultural developments of the past 2000 years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.
Earlier in history, human sacrifice, torture, slavery, gladiator sports, wife beating, child abuse and animal cruelty were all perfectly normal. Now they are barbaric in every civilized country. War belongs in this club.
It is seldom in life that you come to face to face with Absolute Evil and overcome it. We did it in defeating the Axis Powers. Now it is time to do it again. For life on our precious planet to survive, humans must restructure our economic, political and social lives. The Big Three did this in mobilizing resources to bring military victory over the Axis Powers. It is our turn now. This will be a world without poverty, war or global warming. Previously, life could go in the old-fashioned way disregarding religious or humanitarian considerations. Not anymore. There is no planet B. We are all in this together. Business as usual even with some major reforms are not enough. Humans must abolish war and inequality and reverse global warming. Working together we can get to there from here.
Humans must change the exploitation economy into a steady state economy. Make the change from fossil fuels and nuclear fuel to alternative energy.
Realpolitik from Machiavelli, Henry Kissinger, Wall Street and business as usual will only lead to the next war and continuing environmental destruction.
Albert Speer, Hitler’s armament minister, 1942- 1945
A new great war will end with the destruction of human culture and civilization.
Albert Speer, Inside the Their Reich, chapter 35, Conclusions. On Kindle, go to 10382 of 12317
Ein neuer grosser Krieg wird mit der Vernichtung menschlicher Kultur und Zivilisation enden.
Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, chapter 35, Folgerung, page 532.
Henry L. Stimson, US Secretary of War, 1940- 1945.
We must never forget, that under modern conditions of life, science, and technology. All war has been greatly brutalized, and that no one who joins in it, even in self-defense, can escape becoming also in a measure brutalized. Modern war cannot be limited in its destructive method and the inevitable debasement of all participants… A fair scrutiny of the last two World Wars makes clear the steady intensification of the weapons and methods employed by both, the aggressors and the victors. In order to defeat the Japanese aggression, we were forced, as Admiral Nimitz has stated, to employ a technique of unrestricted warfare, not unlike that which 25 years ago was the proximate cause of our entry into World War I. In the use of strategic air power the Allies took the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Germany and Japan…. We as well as our enemies have contributed to the proof that the central moral problem is war and not its methods, and that a continuance of war will in all probability end with the destruction of our civilization.
This is last paragraph in the article. You need a subscription to Foreign Affairs to see it on-line.
Harry L. Stimson (US Secretary of State from 1929-1933, Secretary of War from 1911-1913 and 1940-1945) “The Nuremberg Trial: Landmark in Law” Foreign Affairs, January – February, 1947
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
JFK
In 2017 my family and Father Richard Wahl, CSB, made a 32 minute Pax Christi presentation on YouTube. Pax Christi is a Catholic group dedicated to ending war. As I keynote speaker, I asked for specific action.
Let’s Abolish War: An Evening with Edward T. O’Rourke
From Tommy James and the Shondell’s 1969 song, Crystal Blue Persuasion:
Maybe tomorrow
When he looks down
On every green field (ooh, ooh)
And every town
All of his children
And every nation
There’ll be peace and good brotherhood
Crystal blue persuasion, yeah
Crystal blue persuasion, aah-aah
Crystal blue persuasion, aah-aah
(Crystal blue persuasion, aah-aah)
We shall overcome,
Ed O’Rourke
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