Blair to Have Private Audience With Pope

Tony Blair is to have a private audience with the Pope, the religious leader most obdurate in his opposition to war with Iraq, during a visit to Rome on Saturday.

Although Downing Street would not confirm the details of the audience, the prime minister's chances of convincing the world's most infallible religious leader that he is wrong on the looming conflict must be slim.

John Paul II last week sent advisers to Baghdad on a fact finding mission to bring the ageing pontiff even more up-to-date on the situation there than Mr Blair.

The Pope has repeatedly and vociferously said that war in Iraq would be unjustified and morally wrong. Mr Blair's visit to see him at the Vatican will follow talks with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, on Friday.

Mr Blair met American religious leaders in Downing Street yesterday, who sought to impress on him that many Americans were opposed to war. Of the main churches only the fundamentalist Southern Baptist - a small fraction of the US church-going population -has backed the administration's position on war with Iraq.

The representatives of many of the mainstream US Christian denominations - who have also been to meet political leaders in Moscow, Berlin and Paris - have so far been unable to secure a meeting with President George Bush.

Jim Wallis, the director of the Evangelical Sojourners movement, said: "The British government and people are in a better position to influence the decision to go to war than anyone else in the world and your prime minister can shape this more than any other leader.

"We need to find a better way to solve these issues. I don't think the problem of Saddam Hussein is to be resolved by bombing the children of Baghdad."

Dan Weiss, the immediate past president of the US Baptist Churches, said: "There is a shift in American opinion and our president up until now will not see us.

"He listens to religious voices but not the voices of moderation. I guess if you have a messianic complex you don't like religious people saying you are wrong."