Cardinal Pio Laghi | Vatican diplomat, 86

Cardinal Pio Laghi, 86, a longtime Vatican diplomat who went to Washington to try to dissuade President Bush from launching the 2003 invasion of Iraq, died Jan. 10.

He died at a Rome hospital, where he had been treated for some time, Vatican Radio said.

Pope John Paul II tapped Cardinal Laghi, a former envoy to Washington, in 2003 to meet with Bush on the eve of war. Cardinal Laghi was trying to prevent what he said was a morally and legally unjustified invasion.

Cardinal Laghi had a long career in the Vatican diplomatic corps, serving first in Nicaragua in 1952. He was dispatched to India, Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories, Cyprus, Greece and Argentina before being named envoy to Washington in 1980.

At the time, there were no formal diplomatic relations between the United States and the Holy See; Cardinal Laghi oversaw the establishment of ties in 1984 and remained as the Vatican's permanent diplomatic representative there until he was recalled to Rome to serve as prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education.

He was named a cardinal in 1991. - AP