Humanity insistently calls for “the elimination of nuclear weapons”, and the international community must continue its efforts to “rid the world of the threat of nuclear war”, by dealing in particular with “the leaders of nuclear-weapon States”. Mgr. Paul Richard Gallagher, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, made this appeal during the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York to discuss issues related to denuclearization. For the Holy See, the Vatican representative explained, there are two causes that prevent the goal of disarmament from being achieved: the policy of deterrence, “which drives the arms race and generates a de-humanizing technological environment that sustains and aggravates mistrust among nations”; and spending on nuclear arsenals, which “is a source of growing inequality both within and across nations”. “Faced with a global pandemic of uncertain duration and the worsening effects of global climate change, States must reduce military expenditures in the interest of meeting humanitarian needs and the demands of our common home”, Mgr. Gallagher suggested. Our shared goal, as Pope Francis explains in his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti”, should be to use “military expenditures” to “establish a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger and favor development in the most impoverished countries”.