Pope's plea for peace

Addressing up to 350,000 people at an open-air Mass on Sunday near the lines of Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, Benedict said the country knew "the cry of the widow and the orphan."

"May God grant to your country, to Syria and to the Middle East, the gift of peaceful hearts, the silencing of weapons and the cessation of all violence," the pope said in a prayer after the Mass. "I appeal to the Arab countries that, as brothers, they might propose workable solutions respecting the dignity, the rights and the religion of every human person," the 85-year-old pontiff added.

Activists say 27,000 people have been killed in Syria's 18-month-old uprising against Bashar Assad. Christians, about 10 percent of Syria's population, have largely not joined the uprising, fearful that a new regime could bring hostile Islamists to power.

Benedict had begun his trip to Lebanon on Friday with a call for an end to arms supplies to Syria. Delivering weapons was a "grave sin," the pope said.

The pope made no reference during his visit to the violent protests throughout the Muslim world - including one in Lebanon in which a demonstrator was killed - against an anti-Islam video recently disseminated on the Internet.

However, a spokesman said that Benedict had been following the news.

mkgtj/ (AFP, Reuters)