At the outbreak of the First World War the papacy committed the powers of the Entente to exclude the Vatican from all future negotiations for peace and to ยซregulate the issues raised by the present warยป. On August 7, through a well-known Pope Benedict XV, who in 1915 had already called the war โa horrendous massacre that dishonours Europeโ, the Vatican addressed all the powerful nations to submit to them specific peace proposals in order to stop the struggle as soon as possible. In 1920 the pope declared that a League of Nations would have a role only if ยซfounded on Christian lawยป, while assuring, a year later, the willingness of the Holy See to conclude, with the new States born from the Peace Treaties, pacts that took into account the changed political conditions but theย emphasized the impossibility of granting them those ยซprivilegesยป enjoyed in the past by the pre-war states.
Besides, the geopolitical developments produced by the conflict had their effects also on the Vatican’s situation. Not only did Benedict XV recognize that the isolation of the Holy See was overcome, but diplomatic representations in the Vatican doubled, with the resumption of relations with France and the consolidation of relations with post-GermanThanks to the action of the nuncio Pacelli who had already argued that the concordat regimes were not always better than those of ยซseparationยป.
In all the history books the Note of Pope Benedict XV published on August 1, 1917 against the war called “useless slaughter”. The Popeโs note was harshly discussed and variously interpreted, in the light of fierce nationalism that divided the European states, especially France and Germany, Italy and Austria. Historians agree in observing that the “Note to the Belligerent Powers” sent by the Pope was much more than a document of Vatican diplomacy against war. That note for the first once it showed that the war was unsustainable in terms of international law and indicated that peace was to be based not on the force of arms but on the “moral force of law” This historic position was not taken in an isolated way by the Pope, but is linked to gestures and statements of various representatives of the Catholic world.
In the Note of August 1, 1917, the Pope wrote of the “tremendous struggle which every day more appears a useless massacre”. The Note had no immediate consequence.
We know that the armistice finally arrived in early November 1918. Perhaps the carnage, the massacres of great war were not entirely “useless”, if they started a new course of history towards a peace based not on the force of arms, but on the moral force of law, on the force of law International. on a culture of justice and solidarity between peoples and nations.