VATICAN CITY (RNS) Cardinal Pio Laghi, the Vatican’s first official envoy to Washington and a papal emissary who launched an 11th-hour bid to halt the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, died Sunday (Jan. 11) at age 86.

According to the Italian news agency ANSA, the cause was complications from a blood-related illness.

Pope Benedict XVI will take part in funeral rites on Tuesday (Jan. 13) in St. Peter’s Basilica. In a telegram of condolence to Laghi’s family, Benedict praised Laghi’s “long and generous service to the Holy See.”

During his time in Washington, Laghi helped negotiate full diplomatic relations between the United States and the Holy See, which were established in 1984.

“Cardinal Laghi was a friend who, in his more than 60 years of service to the Catholic Church, worked tirelessly for peace and justice in our world,”President Bush said in a statement on Sunday.

Only last month, Laghi praised the victory of President-elect Barack Obama, and voiced optimism for relations between the Vatican and the incoming U.S. administration.

A career diplomat, Laghi was the Vatican’s envoy to Argentina when a coup set up a military dictatorship there in 1976. Human rights activists later accused him of failing to act or speak out sufficiently against abuses by the regime.

Laghi capped his Vatican career with nearly a decade as head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, where he presided over a controversial and largely unsuccessful effort to give bishops greater control over teaching at Catholic universities.

Even after his retirement in 1999, Laghi continued to perform sensitive diplomatic work. Pope John Paul II sent him to Jerusalem in May 2001, to encourage peace negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

In early March 2003, John Paul sent Laghi back to Washington, where he met with Bush in an attempt to avert the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.