VIETNAM WAR New Peace Bid By Pope

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30954, 10 January 1966, Page 12

VIETNAM WAR New Peace Bid By Pope

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) VATICAN CITY, January 9.

Pope Paul last night offered the Vatican as a “friend and ally” of all nations, and hinted that he might send personal envoys to Communist capitals to plead for peace in Vietnam.

In a speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, the Pope said: “God is our witness that we on our part are ready to try all steps—even outside the normally accepted forms of protocol—whenever we feel that the Church can usefully contribute to Governments the weight of her moral authority for the maintenance and the furthering of a just peace among men and among peoples.” High Vatican sources said that this meant the Pope might send personal representatives to Moscow, Peking, Hanoi and possibly Saigon in an effort to bring about peace talks. Pope Paul, apparently heartened by results of his earlier peace efforts, summoned the diplomats to the Vatican for the session. Response Met He said bis recent Vietnam peace appeals stirred a “wide echo” which proved “the Church’s response (to world needs) today does not meet with indifference. “It could certainly be objected that in the face of conflicts in which modern armies confront each other with their terrible means of destruction, the voice of such an unarmed power as the Church risks being drowned

out by the noise of the fighting,” Pope Paul said. “But experience shows —also in these last few days—that it is listened to with respect and even sought and desired.”