THE VATICAN: Speaking in the Vatican on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent yesterday, the Pope urged world leaders to make every effort to spare humanity what he called "a dramatic conflict" in Iraq.
"Everyone has to knowingly assume their responsibility and make a common effort to spare humanity another dramatic conflict," he said at his general audience.
Minutes after he spoke, demonstrators unfurled a 25-metre rainbow-coloured peace flag under his window in St Peter's Square.
Catholics also held prayers in Rwanda, Senegal, Argentina. India and in predominantly Muslim Indonesia.
In Geneva, the World Council of Churches, which speaks for most Christian faiths other than the Roman Catholic, also urged the faithful to pray for peace yesterday.
In Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger asked believers to say a lunchtime prayer for peace throughout the Lent period.
"Why do it? Because in order to solve conflicts peacefully instead of waging war we must overcome, in the hearts of all men, egoism, pride and arrogance, hate, lies, violence," he said in a statement.
The Pope's appeal yesterday came as a Vatican envoy, Cardinal Pio Laghi, was due to meet President Bush for talks in Washington.
The White House said the President, a devout Christian who reads the Bible nearly every morning for inspiration, "looks forward to receiving and greeting" Cardinal Laghi, a former Vatican ambassador to the United States. - (Reuters)