ROME, March 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Coming under diatribe from the four corners of the world, the wartime U.S. President George W. Bush was censured Tuesday, March 18, by the Vatican for his bellicose policy and defiance of the international legitimacy.

In a terse statement, the Holy See said Bush assumed a "grave responsibility before God" in deciding that diplomacy to avoid conflict with Iraq had been exhausted, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"Whoever decides that all peaceful means under international law have been exhausted is assuming a grave responsibility before God, his conscience and before history," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.

John Paul II, leader of the world's estimated 1.5 billion Catholics, has used his moral leadership to try to dissuade Bush, his military ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, from unleashing war on Iraq.

The pontiff, who prayed Sunday, March 16, for "courage and clear-sightedness" for world leaders, clearly believes war can be avoided even at this late stage, though his special envoy to Washington, Cardinal Pio Laghi, has admitted there were "few options left" to avoid conflict.

"We are hoping that war can be avoided, even if it is clear today that the situation has been considerably complicated," Laghi said on Saturday, March 15, after formally briefing the pope on his peace mission to see Bush in Washington two weeks ago.

Apart from Laghi's mission to Washington, the pope dispatched another senior Vatican diplomat, French cardinal Roger Etchegaray, to Baghdad to plead with Saddam to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors and respect resolutions.

Last week, he also called on Christians to observe a special day-long fast to empathize the suffering of the Iraqi people.

"I want to remind U.N. members and particularly those who make up the Security Council that the use of force is the last resort after having exhausted all peaceful solutions, as stipulated by the U.N. charter," the pontiff told tens of thousands of worshippers gathered in St. Peter's Square on Sunday.

He voices his own personal fears of war in a rare departure from his prepared text.

"I lived through World War I and I survived the Second World War. For this reason I have the duty to say 'never again war'," he said.

"We know that it is impossible to say peace at any price but we all know how important our responsibility is."

The pope's anti-war stance has been backed by the leaders of both the Protestant and Catholic communities in Britain, who issued a joint statement last month which questioned the moral legitimacy of a war on Iraq, and called for more inspections.

The Vatican's statement came after Bush had given Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons a 48-hour ultimatum to leave Iraq or face a war of "fearful consequences."

On March 7, renowned Islamic scholar Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi issued a Fatwa (a religious edict) that it was not permissible for Arab and Muslim countries to let the United States use their airports, harbors and territories as a launching-pad for striking Iraq.

"Resisting the invaders is an individual duty on all Muslims. If the enemies invaded a Muslim country, the people of that country should resist and expel them from their territories…It is an individual duty on all Muslims, men and women," he stressed.

In addition, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi ruled that attempts to stop a U.S. aggression on Iraq are Jihad and resisting such an attack is a "binding Islamic duty."