Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican secretary for relations with states, called for the creation of a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world to demonstrate that “global security must not rely on nuclear weapons.” He spoke on Sept. 19 at the general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The archbishop said the Holy See believes that the ratification and enforcement of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty “will represent a great leap forward for the future of humanity, as well as for the protection of the earth and environment entrusted to our care by the Creator.” The archbishop also noted that the disaster at the nuclear facility Fukushima Daiichi, which followed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March 2011, “quickly revealed that a local nuclear crisis is indeed a global problem. It also revealed that the world is exposed to real and systemic risks, and not just hypothetical ones, with incalculable costs, and the necessity of developing international political coordination the likes of which have never been seen.”