In a recent column George Weigel examines an intercessory prayer, and decides that he will not pray it, after analyzing what it seems to mean to him. The prayer is this:

“That all world leaders may put aside their political differences and work for true and lasting peace, let us pray to the Lord.”

Even after studying his column, I cannot see what is wrong with the prayer. Since history provides all too many examples of leaders who put their own differences ahead of justice or peace, it seems hardly wrong to pray that things change.

In 1917, during WWI, Pope Benedict XV had this to say about what he was going to attempt to do:

to leave nothing undone within Our power, which could assist in hastening the end of this calamity, by trying to lead the peoples and their heads to more moderate frames of mind and to the calm deliberations of peace, of a "just and lasting" peace.

And in the Balkans in 1999, Pope John Paul II expressed his wish as this:

to appeal in God's name to all those who in one way or another are responsible for the current tragedy, that they will have the courage to return to dialogue and find the right conditions for achieving a just and lasting peace

I cannot see any essential difference between what the Popes said, and what the prayer asks for.