Rome — Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday hailed the Irish Republican Army disarmament decision as "beautiful news" and urged all to work for a lasting peace after decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland.
Benedict, addressing pilgrims at his summer palace, Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome, expressed "satisfaction and hope" over the development a few days earlier in which the Irish Republican Army met international demands to declare its 1997 cease-fire permanent and to renounce violence.
"I encourage everyone without exception to continue to travel down with courage the indicated path and to undertake further steps which will allow the strengthening of mutual trust, promote reconciliation and consolidate the negotiations aimed at just and lasting peace," the pope said.
He said he was echoing a 1979 call by Pope John Paul II to "distance oneself from the paths of violence and return to the road to peace."
In September of that year, John Paul delivered an impassioned plea for a stop to the terrorist attacks that were then marking Roman Catholics' efforts to wrest predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland from British control.
The IRA on Thursday announced it was renouncing the use of violence against British rule in Northern Ireland and would disarm.
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