Pope: "No to war!"

Ooh, wouldn't it be awesome if John Paul showed up at one of the protests this week.

Pope John Paul II today expressed his strongest opposition yet to a potential war in Iraq, describing it as a "defeat for humanity" and urging world leaders to try to resolve disputes with Iraq through diplomatic means.

"No to war!" the pope said during his annual address to scores of diplomatic emissaries to the Vatican, an exhortation that referred in part to Iraq, a country he mentioned twice.

"War is not always inevitable," he said. "It is always a defeat for humanity."