Addressing around 15,000 pilgrims in St Peter's Square, the 82-year-old pontiff said he was making a "sorrowful appeal to the political authorities, as to all men of good will, to commit themselves to cease violence and injustice...."

John Paul II said politicians and individuals should put aside "personal egoism" in favour of the "effective cooperation of the international community."

"While clashes are continuing in Baghdad and other cities of Iraq, causing death and destruction, news of massacres and summary executions reaches us from Africa," said the pope, referring to a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"All efforts at reconciliation must be encouraged between the Congolese, Ugandan and Rwandan populations as well as the efforts in Burundi and Sudan, in the hope that they can rapidly produce the peace which is so desired," he said.

SPACE.WIRE