Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin speaks to Vatican News about events in the Middle East, warning of a dangerous rise of multipolarism marked by the primacy of power.
By Andrea Tornielli “This erosion of international law is truly worrying: justice has given way to force; the force of law has been replaced by the law of force.” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, spoke on Wednesday to Vatican News about the ongoing war in the Middle East. In the following interview, he expressed concern that “a multipolarism marked by the primacy of power and self-referentiality is dangerously taking hold.” Q: Your Eminence, how are you experiencing these dramatic hours? With great sorrow, because the peoples of the Middle East—including the already fragile Christian communities—have once again been plunged into the horror of war, which brutally shatters human lives, brings destruction, and drags entire nations into spirals of violence with uncertain outcomes. On Sunday at the Angelus, the Pope spoke of a “tragedy of enormous proportions” and the risk of an “irreparable abyss.” Those are more than eloquent words to describe the moment we are going through. Q: What do you think of the US and Israeli attack on Iran? I believe that peace and security must be cultivated and pursued through the possibilities offered by diplomacy, especially diplomacy exercised within multilateral bodies, where states have the possibility of resolving conflicts in a bloodless and more just way. After the Second World War, which caused about 60 million deaths, the founding fathers, by creating the United Nations, wanted to spare their children the horrors they themselves had experienced. For this reason, in the UN Charter they sought to provide clear guidance on the management of conflicts. Today, those efforts seem to have been nullified. Not only that, but as the Pope reminded the Diplomatic Corps at the beginning of the year, “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all is being replaced by a diplomacy of force, of individuals or groups of allies,” and people think that peace can be pursued “by means of arms.” When speaking of the causes of a war, it is complex to determine who is right and who is wrong. What is certain, however, is that war will always produce victims and destruction, as well as devastating effects on civilians. For this reason, the Holy See prefers to recall the need to use all the instruments offered by diplomacy in order to resolve disputes among states. History has already taught us that only politics—through the hard work of negotiation and attention to balancing interests—can increase trust among peoples, promote development, and preserve peace. Q: The justification for the attack was to prevent the production of new missiles—in short, a “preventive war.” As the UN Charter notes, recourse to force must be considered only as a last and most grave resort, after all the instruments of political and diplomatic dialogue have been used, after carefully assessing the limits of necessity and proportionality, on the basis of rigorous verification and well-founded reasons, and always within the framework of multilateral governance. If states were to be recognized as having a right to “preventive war,” according to their own criteria and without a supranational legal framework, the whole world would risk being set ablaze. This erosion of international law is truly worrying: justice has given way to force; the force of law has been replaced by the law of force, with the conviction that peace can arise only after the enemy has been annihilated. Q: What weight do the massive street demonstrations of recent weeks have, which were bloodily suppressed in Iran? Can they be forgotten? Certainly not; this too has been a cause of deep concern. The aspirations of peoples must be taken into consideration and guaranteed within the legal framework of a society that ensures everyone can freely and publicly express their ideas—and this also applies to the dear Iranian people. At the same time, we may ask ourselves whether anyone truly believes that the solution can come through the launching of missiles and bombs. Q: Why are international law and diplomacy experiencing such a point of decline today? What has been lost is the awareness that the common good truly benefits everyone—that is, that the good of the other is also a good for me, and therefore justice, prosperity, and security are achieved insofar as all can benefit from them. This principle lies at the foundation of the creation of the multilateral system and of a bold project such as the European Union. That awareness has weakened, and with it has grown the appetite for one’s own interests. This has another consequence as well: the system of multilateral diplomacy in relations among states is undergoing a profound crisis, inter alia because of the distrust states harbor toward legal constraints that limit their action. Such an attitude represents the other side of the will to power: the desire to act freely, to impose one’s own order on others, while avoiding the dramatic but noble toil of politics, made up of discussions, negotiations, advantages for oneself, and concessions to others. A multipolarism marked by the primacy of power and self-referentiality is dangerously taking hold. Unfortunately, principles such as the self-determination of peoples, territorial sovereignty, and the rules governing war itself (ius in bello) are being called back into question. The whole body of international law built up in areas such as disarmament, development cooperation, respect for fundamental rights, intellectual property, and trade and transit is being questioned and gradually set aside. And above all, there seems to have been a loss of awareness of what Immanuel Kant wrote in 1795: “A violation of right in one part of the world is felt in all parts.” Even more serious, in certain respects, is the invocation of international law according to one’s own convenience. Q: What are you referring to? I am referring to the fact that there are cases in which the international community is outraged and mobilizes, and cases in which it does not—or does so much more weakly—thus giving the impression that there are violations of law to be punished and others to be tolerated, civilian victims to be mourned and others to be regarded as “collateral damage.” There are no first-class and second-class dead, nor people who have more right to live than others simply because they were born on one continent rather than another, or in a particular country. I would like to recall the importance of international humanitarian law, whose observance cannot depend on circumstances or on military and strategic interests. The Holy See forcefully reiterates its condemnation of every form of involvement of civilians and civilian structures—such as homes, schools, hospitals, and places of worship—in military operations, and asks that the principle of the inviolability of human dignity and the sacredness of life always be protected. Q: What short-term prospects do you see for this new crisis? I hope and pray that the appeal to responsibility that Pope Leo XIV addressed on Sunday will be heeded and will break through the hearts of those making decisions. I hope that the din of weapons will soon cease and that we may return to negotiation. We must not empty negotiations of their meaning: it is essential to allow the necessary time for them to reach concrete results, working with patience and determination. Moreover, we must acknowledge that the international order has changed profoundly from the one designed eighty years ago with the establishment of the UN. Without nostalgia for the past, it is necessary to resist every delegitimization of international institutions and to promote the strengthening of supranational norms that help States resolve disputes peacefully, through diplomacy and politics. Q: What hope is there in the face of all this? Christians hope because they trust in God made man, who in Gethsemane commanded Peter to put his sword back into its sheath, and who on the Cross experienced firsthand the horror of blind and senseless violence. They also hope because, despite wars, destruction, uncertainties, and a widespread sense of disorientation, voices continue to rise from many parts of the world calling for peace and justice. Our peoples are asking for peace! This appeal should shake those who lead nations and all those working in the context of international relations, urging them to multiply their efforts for peace.