The pope is not known to be one to mince his words when it comes to global weapons manufacturers. On Sunday, he set aside the remarks he had planned to deliver during a rally in Turin, and instead unleashed a tirade on politics and war, focusing on the arms industry, in his harshest criticism to date.
“If you trust only men, you have lost,” he said, ”It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn’t it?”
He called out those who invest in the industry for their hypocrisy:”duplicity is the currency of today… they say one thing and do another.”
This is not the first time Francis chastised the $400 billion business. He called it the “industry of death” in May, adding that ”[t]his is why some people don’t want peace: they make more money from war, although wars make money but lose lives, health, education.” He said the devil “enters through our wallets.” In 2014, he called weapons manufacturers “merchants of death.”