ROME - Pope Leo on Thursday decried rising European military spending, which grew last year by the highest amount since the end of the Cold War amid pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, saying it was a betrayal of diplomacy.

Leo, who has drawn Trump's ire in recent weeks after criticizing the Iran war, told university students in Rome that they should not refer to such rearmament as defence spending, adding that the world was being "maimed by wars".

"Let us not call 'defence' a rearmament that increases tensions and insecurity, impoverishes investments in education and health, betrays trust in diplomacy, and enriches elites who care nothing for the common good," said the pontiff.

Military spending across the continent rose 14% in 2025 to $864 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and rearmament by European NATO members.

Trump has repeatedly chastised European allies to spend more on arms, and signed an executive order in February that would re-prioritize the customer list for U.S. weapons in favour of countries with higher defence spending.

At Trump's urging, NATO in 2025 supported a new defence spending target of 5% of GDP for its members.

Leo has been speaking out against the direction of world leadership in recent weeks. On Thursday, he was addressing students at Rome's Sapienza University, the largest institution of higher learning in Europe.

The pope also warned about the use of artificial intelligence in warfare, citing conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon and Iran as showing "the inhumane evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation".

Leo urged the some 110,000 students at the university not to "close themselves within ideologies and national borders".

"Together with me and with many brothers and sisters, be artisans of true peace," the pope pleaded.

(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Edited by Crispian Balmer)

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.

This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 7:51 AM.

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