Pope calls for peace

(July 23, 2007) Pope Benedict XVI made an appeal for peace on Sunday, saying nations should halt bloody conflicts around the world to create a heaven on earth. Addressing the faithful at his mountain retreat at Lorenzago di Cadore in the Italian Dolomites where he is vacationing, the Pope said his summer holiday made him particularly sensitive to the suffering caused by war. "In these days of rest ... I feel even more intensely the painful impact of the news I receive about bloody conflicts and violent events happening in so many parts of the world," he told faithful during the midday ‘Angelus’ prayer in the sunny mountain valley town. "The beauty of nature reminds us that we were instructed by God to cultivate and keep this paradise that is the earth. But man sinned and began making war. “The consequence is that in this stupendous garden which is the world, there is now room for hell,” he said. But ‘if men lived in peace with God and with each other, the earth really would look like a 'heaven'." He recalled that 90 years ago _ on Aug. 1, 1917 _ his predecessor Pope Benedict XV urged a similar end to the first World War, then ravaging this part of northern Italy. “While this inhuman conflict raged, the pope had the courage to affirm that it was a 'useless slaughter,”' Pope Benedict said. “These words - 'useless slaughter' - contained a fuller prophetic value that can be applied to so many other conflicts that have cut off countless human lives.” He did not refer explicitly to any current conflict but prayed for peace and made a plea for people to "refuse with determination the race for arms and, more generally, to reject the temptation to deal with new situations with old systems." The 80-year-old Pope will end his vacation on Friday and go to the summer papal residence of Castelgandolfo south of Rome, where he will resume his normal schedule till the end of summer.