Utopia(s) Conversations on a Convivial Society for All

The Libreria Editrice Vaticana has published a new volume by Pope Leo XIV, entitled “Disarmata e disarmante. La pace è un dono”. Edited by Alessandro Banfi, it is the first anthology that draws on various interventions by Robert Francis Prevost on the theme of peace from the day of his election, May 8, 2025.

The main idea of Pope Leo on peace and war is that not atomic weapons but disarmament generates peace. We propose a conversation on this crucial question raised in the latest work of Pope Leo.

Guests:
Raffaela Giovagnoli (PhD in Philosophy, University of Rome “La Sapienza”), Professor of Social Ontology and Social Epistemology at the Department of Philosophy, Pontifical Lateran University, member of the executive board of GSIS and Co-Vicepresident for transdisciplinary projects of the IS4SI.
Sergio Prado (PhD in Philosophy, Pontifical Lateran University), Engineer (retired) in computational Systems in the Amministrazione del Patrimonio della Sede Apostolica, in the Ufficio Internet della Santa Sede and in the Direzione Teologico Pastorale del Dicastero per la Comunicazione. 

Moderation:
Irena Mostowicz (PhD in in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, MA in Political Science, University of Konstanz, and BA in Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw), member of the executive board of GSIS and Co-Vicepresident for communication of the IS4SI. Currently on maternity leave.

18 December 2026, 15:00 CET
Romanogasse 28, 1220 Vienna
First Floor, on the left

You are welcome to attend in-person or online. If you intend to come in-person, please, be so kind and send us a note to office@gsis.at.

ZOOM (to be announced)

In particular, the following statements of Pope Leo will be presented for discussion:

In Pope Leo’s words: «Peace be with you!»: this was the first greeting that the Risen Jesus addressed to his apostles (Jn 20:19). This is also the first gift that the risen Christ offered to his friends and to the whole world: peace. That gift, however, did not happen “cheaply”: the glorious body of the Master of Nazareth showed the wounds of the Passion. He went through hatred, violence, the crucifix of the world. Jesus Christ suffered injustice, disarmed and disarming, and has risen. The evangelical announcement was inserted and is inserted in history. Today like two thousand years ago.

We can observe that the weapons rumble and kill in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, Myanmar, Yemen, Congo and in many other regions. Pope Francis coined the expression “World War III in pieces” to describe a situation of widespread conflict, unprecedented since the end of the Second World War.

Pope Leo highlights some aspects that are close to his heart.

First of all, peace is a responsibility of all human beings. We cannot ask for peace from the powerful of the world if we do not begin to live it ourselves, starting from our daily relationships: in our families, in our homes, in our cities, in the places where we work. Peace is built with small daily gestures: a smile given, an insult forgiven, a kind word.

Moreover, peace is built with truth. Even those who make war claim to act “in the name” of peace; every person aspires to justice and wants to live in peace. Especially after the terrible consequences of the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, war has increasingly become an “adventure of no return”, as St. John Paul II warned. Especially in the nuclear age, the affirmation of truth must make its way: it is not nuclear weapons that generate peace, but disarmament.

The Church humbly draws everyone’s attention to a question today: should the human species continue to inhabit the Earth? The combination of cyber dominance with global rearming leads us to take this question seriously. A world in which machines, however sophisticated and faster than human beings, decide whether to bomb unarmed people would be really frightening. The consciousness of a single man can be worth the whole world.

Finally, peace needs hope. The Church will continue to preach charity to all men and women. If there is something that the world is looking for today, Pope Leo thinks it is a message of hope for the future and we ought to look to tomorrow with hope, having found in the message of Jesus its ultimate source. For the essence of Christ’s teaching is this: charity, love, giving life for others can defeat death, isolation, violence.