Don't start arms race in Outer Space, says Catholic Church

The Vatican has pleaded with major powers not to wage war in Outer Space or use weapons in space to launch attacks on the Earth.

A statement by Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Vatican’s spokesman to the United Nations interjected on a debate into preventing an arms race in outer space

“Some States have evidently envisioned from time to time the deployment in outer space of weapons systems designed to destroy other objects in space, or even to launch attacks against targets on the surface of the Earth,” Archbishop Auza said.

“Weapons systems acting in space and the testing of weapons in space, however characterized, should be prohibited.”

The United Nations is debating the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space, which it is hoped will update the Outer Space Treaty in 1967 which bans weapons of mass destruction being placed in space, but does not stipulate about other weapons.

The main concern comes from China who have been singled out for weapons testing in space and after one of its air force chiefs said that an arms race in space was “an inevability”.