Pope Summons Bishops for Gulf Talks : Religion: Prelates from nations involved in the war will attend. Pontiff hopes to avoid a Christian-Islamic rift.

VATICAN CITY —  Hoping to short-circuit sectarian strife in the aftermath of Middle Eastern violence, Pope John Paul II on Tuesday summoned Roman Catholic bishops from countries involved in the Gulf War, including the United States and Iraq, to an unprecedented peace-seeking conference at the Vatican.

The unexpected call to a two-day meeting March 4-5 is extraordinary in its context and its timing: The Pope is making a Lenten spiritual retreat this week, an annual event that normally preempts his agenda.

Vatican officials depicted the summons as an extension of papal concern with the Middle East, but observers could recall no precedent for a meeting of bishops and Pope with such stark political overtones.

John Paul summoned the bishop-presidents of episcopal conferences in the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium and North Africa. They are to meet with patriarchs representing Eastern Rite Catholic churches in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, and with the Latin Rite patriarch of Jerusalem, who represents Catholics, most of them Palestinians, in Israel and the occupied territories.

Accompanied by prelates of the Curia, John Paul plans to preside at what spokesman Joaquin Navarro said will be “two days of intense talks on the consequences of the war on the peoples of the Middle East.”

Results of the talks will suggest ways the church can address the humanitarian, cultural and religious needs of a region convulsed by war, Navarro said.

The American church will be represented by Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposed the war before it began and has since urged that “every reasonable step must be taken to safeguard human life, minimize casualties and to ensure that the means of war are proportionate to the values to be defended.”

The Iraqi prelate called to Rome is 68-year-old Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid, Baghdad-based leader of the half-million-member Chaldean Catholic Church. The patriarch, currently traveling in the United States, where there are about 50,000 Chaldean Catholics in the Detroit area, has publicly praised President Saddam Hussein and Iraq’s “just cause.”

Since Iraq invaded Kuwait, John Paul has appealed 40 times for a peaceful resolution to the crisis--with no effect. He has called for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait and an international conference to guarantee a Palestinian homeland and Israel’s right to secure borders--with no impact.

Now that a war he calls “an adventure without return” is under way, John Paul is seeking again, through the bishops’ meeting, to project church influence in the interests of peace, observers say.

One of the papal fears is that the conflict will exacerbate a gap between Arabs and the West that will damage postwar relations between Christianity and Islam. He is determined to protect Catholic interests in the overwhelmingly Muslim region.