ROME (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI Sunday urged the world to eschew wars, saying they went "against God's design" for the human race.
"War with its pain, destruction ... is rightly considered as a calamity which goes against God's design ... for one human family," the pontiff said at an angelus, a devotion in memory of the incarnation in Christianity, at the village of Lorenzago di Cadore in northern Italy.
He spoke of the "unacceptability of futile massacres," and called for people to "tenaciously follow the right path and firmly reject any recourse to arms."
"If men live in peace with God and between themselves, Earth will become paradise," he said.
"But humans succumb to evil temptations and make war on each other."
Some 6,000 people attended the angelus at the village, which has a population of about 600.