Vatican City ? Pope John Paul II used his Easter message to issue a forceful plea for an end to a bloody spiral of violence that has created “horror and despair” in the Holy Land.

Following a string of Palestinian suicide bombings and the Israeli takeover of Yasser Arafat’s compound in the West Bank, John Paul dedicated much of the traditional address, entitled “Urbi et Orbi” Â “To the city and to the world” Â to the conflict.

During prayers, his voice was sometimes slurred, a symptom of Parkinson’s disease. But at the end of the 1 1/2 hour-long Mass, the pope summoned his strength to raise his voice in a denunciation of Middle East bloodshed.

Speaking in Italian, he called on Christians everywhere to help stop “the dramatic spiral of imposition of will by force and killings which bloody the Holy Land, plunged again in these very days into horror and despair.”

For reasons unclear, the Vatican’s official English translation rendered the pope’s remark as urging Christians to help “bring an end to the tragic sequence of atrocities and killings.”

Remarking glumly that it appeared that “war has been declared on peace,” John Paul called on political and religious leaders to do what they can to “help everyone to rediscover mutual respect and return to frank negotiation.”

“Nothing is resolved through reprisal and retaliation,” the pope said.

John Paul also lamented the lack of peace in general in the world, ruefully remarking that history shows that peace “is often a precarious balance of powers that soon or later turn against one another once more.”

Through most of the ceremony, the pope sat in an armchair shaded from a brilliant sun by a canopy. At the end, he recited Easter wishes in 62 languages.

The Vatican has said the pope is cutting back his activities to rest a knee afflicted with painful arthrosis, a joint disease. On Sunday, a Rome surgeon said the Vatican is looking into the possibility of knee surgery soon for the pontiff.