Pope prays for Iraq

POPE John Paul II yesterday said he was praying for the Iraqi people after militants bombed two churches in Mosul, the latest anti-Christian violence in the country.

“I express my spiritual closeness to the faithful, shocked by the attacks,” John Paul said, speaking from his apartment window above St Peter’s Square on the Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception.

He said he was praying that Iraqis “may finally know a time of reconciliation and peace”.