Pope John Paul II will dispatch a special envoy to Iraq to emphasize his plea for peace and to try to encourage Iraqi authorities to cooperate with the United Nations, the Vatican announced Sunday.
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, emeritus president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, will leave Rome on Monday for Baghdad, accompanied by a counselor, Monsignor Franco Coppola.
Their mission is to "show to all the plea of the Holy Father in favor of peace and to help the Iraqi authorities make a serious reflection on the need for effective international cooperation, based on justice and international rights, with the aim of assuring this population of the supreme good of peace," papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement.
Details of the visit weren't released, but meetings with top Iraqi officials, including possibly Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, were expected.
Etchegaray would be carrying a personal message from the pope, a Vatican official said.
The Vatican has been outspoken in its opposition to a new Iraq conflict, with top clerics saying a preventive strike would have no legal or moral justification. The pontiff himself has previously said war against Iraq would be a "defeat for humanity."
John Paul reiterated his concerns Sunday, telling crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square for his weekly appearance: "In this hour of international concern, we all feel the need to turn ourselves to the Lord to implore the great gift of peace."
The pope was a vocal opponent to the 1991 Gulf War, and over the years has frequently spoken out in opposition to U.N. sanctions imposed on Baghdad after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Etchegaray, 80, has previously served as the pope's envoy to trouble spots, most recently to Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he tried to help end the standoff last year between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen holed up in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
He visited Iraq in 1998 for a religious conference and to also look into a possible papal trip, which never occurred.
The pope plans to meet with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on Friday the day U.N. weapons inspectors are to deliver progress reports to the U.N. Security Council. Also, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was expected to meet with the pontiff on Feb. 18.
Etchegaray leaves Rome at the same time a prominent conservative American Catholic, Michael Novak, holds meetings with senior Vatican officials to defend the hard-line U.S. position on Iraq.
In an interview Sunday with the Italian business daily Il Sole-24 Ore, Novak disputed the contention that a strike against Baghdad constituted a "preventive" war. Vatican officials have described any war against Iraq as a "preventive" strike and therefore not covered by the Church's "just war" doctrine.
"The conflict against Iraq, for the United States, started in 1991 and never finished," Novak was quoted as saying.
Novak added that a war against Iraq would be "just" because there was an imminent threat of an attack against the United States and its allies in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
Novak is to give a public speech on the U.S. position Monday. On Saturday, he told senior Church officials that a war against Iraq should be considered self defense.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a top U.S. ally in the Iraqi conflict, has said he would consider meeting with Aziz during his visit to Rome to see the pope. On Sunday, the president of the Lombard region, Roberto Formigoni, said he would meet with Aziz on Thursday.