The Vatican on Thursday lashed out at Washington for interrupting diplomacy as churches around the world stood united in deploring the war in Iraq.
"The Vatican is deeply pained by the latest developments in Iraq," Vatican chief spokesman Jaoquin Navarro-Valls, one of Pope John Paul's closest aides, said in a statement.
"On the one hand it laments the fact that the Iraqi government did not accept the resolutions of the United Nations and the appeal by the pope himself, which asked for the country to disarm.
"On the other hand, it deplores the interruption of the path of negotiations, according to international law, for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi drama."
Pope John Paul has emerged in recent weeks as one of the most powerful anti-war voices.
The Vatican's despair was echoed by Britain's Christian and Muslim leaders, who also led efforts to prevent the war.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's some 70 million Anglicans, said in a joint statement with the Archbishop of York, David Hope, that the world had entered "dangerous new terrain with consequences that cannot be surely known or predicted."
The umbrella group Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) and The Muslim Council of Britain, took a tougher stand in a joint statement.
"In this time of crisis and deep disappointment, it is vitally important that, despite the occasional unhappy use of 'crusade' language by some American political leaders, none should see the conflict as one between faiths."
MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN WORRIES
To head off inter-religious tension, Anglican bishops in cities with large Muslim populations invited Muslims to conduct Friday prayers in Christian cathedrals rather than mosques.
The Vatican, too, has been very worried that the conflict may harm relations between religions, particularly in Muslim countries where Christians are a minority.
It said the Vatican's embassy in Baghdad would remain open despite the conflict to help oversee Catholic charitable efforts for Iraqis caught up by the war.
Greek Orthodox leader Archbishop Christodoulos called for peace prayers and in Istanbul, the Orthodox Patriarchate hoped "humanity will not mourn new victims and horrible holocausts."
France's Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches also put aside their differences in a joint statement that denounced the attacks as "a dramatic defeat for humanity."
"This war will kill and wound men and women already burdened by years of embargo and tyranny... This war was not necessary, because other paths were open," they said.
Lutheran leaders in Scandinavia also denounced the war.
ODD CHURCH OUT
The Orthodox Church in Bulgaria, whose government backs the United States, was one of the few religious groups that supported the conflict and was praying for a quick victory of the U.S-led coalition.
"We think that if the regime in Baghdad remains in power, there will be many more victims than the casualties caused by the war," said Father Kamen Barakov, a church leader.
In Iran, which fought a bloody eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, Muslim clerics denounced the Iraqi regime but also took the United States to task for its support of Israel.
"It is obvious that America in this war is trying to strengthen Zionists in the region," Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani was quoted as saying by Iranian state radio.
Back at the Vatican, the senior cardinal sent by the pope to Washington to try to convince President Bush to avoid war called the Iraqi conflict a "tragic initiative" that left the pontiff feeling frustrated.
Cardinal Pio Laghi, who met Bush in Washington two weeks ago, told Reuters in a telephone interview that both he and the pope felt that war could have been averted.
"This is a tragic initiative and we pray that it can be eased without so many victims," said Laghi.