Editing Pope John Paul II (section)

=== Persian Gulf War ===
Between 1990 and 1991, a 34-nation coalition led by the United States waged a war against [[Saddam Hussein]]'s [[Ba'athist Iraq|Iraq]], which had invaded and annexed [[Kuwait]]. John Paul II was a staunch opponent of the [[Gulf War]]. Throughout the conflict, he appealed to the international community to stop the war, and after it was over led diplomatic initiatives to negotiate peace in the Middle East.<ref>{{cite news |agency=Times Wire Services |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-04-01-mn-1253-story.html |title=Pontiff's Message Condemns Destruction of Gulf War |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=1 April 1991 |access-date=22 November 2013}}</ref> In his 1991 encyclical [[Centesimus annus]], John Paul II harshly condemned the conflict:

<blockquote>"No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus making it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very problems which provoked the war."<ref>{{cite news |author=Drew Christiansen, SJ |url=http://americamagazine.org/issue/398/article/hawks-doves-and-pope-john-paul-ii |title=Hawks, Doves, and Pope John Paul II |work=[[America (Jesuit magazine)|America]] |date=12 August 2002 |access-date=22 November 2013}}</ref></blockquote>

In April 1991, during his ''[[Urbi et Orbi]]'' Sunday message at [[St. Peter's Basilica]], John Paul II called for the international community to "lend an ear" to "the long-ignored aspirations of oppressed peoples". He specifically named the [[Kurds]], a people who were fighting a civil war against Saddam Hussein's troops in Iraq, as one such people, and referred to the war as a "darkness menacing the earth". During this time, the Vatican had expressed its frustration with the international ignoring of the pope's calls for peace in the Middle East.<ref>{{cite news |author=Clyde Haberman |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/01/world/pope-denounces-the-gulf-war-as-darkness.html |title=Pope Denounces Gulf War As 'Darkness' |newspaper=The New York Times |date=1 April 1991 |access-date=22 November 2013}}</ref>