Pope visits native Germany

COLOGNE - Thousands of young Catholic pilgrims greeted Pope Benedict XVI with Mexican waves and chants of "Benedetto" yesterday as he arrived in his native Germany for a visit intended to forge ties with Jews and Muslims and spark "a wave of new faith" among Europe's youth.

The Pope's four-day excursion to the Catholic World Youth Day in the Rhineland city of Cologne was the pontiff's first major foreign trip since his election last April and had been originally scheduled for the late Pope John Paul II.

Benedict XVI did not follow his predecessor's practice of kissing the ground after stepping off his Alitalia plane and he even lost his white skullcap in a gust of wind.

He told hundreds of cheering believers, " I never imagined that my first visit abroad as Pope would be to Germany."

However Germany rolled out the red carpet yesterday for the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Horst Kohler, the German President, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and more than 400,000 young Catholics were on hand to greet the Pope in the ancient cathedral city.

"We are glad that you are one of us," said President Kohler in a welcoming speech which referred to the Pope's brief wartime role as an anti-aircraft Flak gunner in the German army.

"As a member of that generation, your election is as sign of reconciliation sixty years after the end of the war," he said.

In an opening speech frequently interrupted by chants of: "Benedetto, Benedetto"- his name in Italian - the Pope said he was delighted by the welcome given to him in his "beloved fatherland" and said he hoped to help young people view their lives as a "pilgrimage" in search of God.

On Friday the Pope will hold talks with members of Cologne's Jewish and Muslim communities and visit a synagogue, rebuilt after being destroyed by the Nazis.

The Pope described the talks yesterday as part of his efforts to "build a just and brotherly future through dialogue."

The World Youth Day festival was inspired by the late Pope John Paul II and is held in a different part of the world each year.

Yesterday the Pope was feted by thousands of young Catholics from throughout Europe and further abroad who gathered on the banks of the Rhine as the Pontiff voyaged from the Cologne Bishop's palace to the city's cathedral to attend mass. The Cologne authorities had renamed the boat carrying the pope "BVI" for the trip.

The highlight of his visit will be an open air mass held on the site of a former coal mine outside the city centre on Sunday.

The Pope has stressed that he hopes to inspire "a wave of new faith" among young Europeans who he claims have bowed to consumerism and lost touch with religion.

However to many of the visitors to the Cologne event the new Pope appeared to be a much shyer and less charismatic figure than his legendary predecessor.

"What young people see in the new Pope is continuity," said Richard Fossey, a University professor from Huston in Texas who was accompanying a group of Catholic students to Cologne."

"They know that he is not going to change anything and that is reassuring in these troubled times," he added.

The German media has pointed out that the majority of young people attending the World Youth Day celebrations are not Germans by young Catholics from Italy, Spain and France.

The Germans' waning interest in religion was further outlined by an opinion poll last week which suggested that most people trusted the police and the country's largest supermarket chain more than the new German Pope, with his reputation for hard line orthodoxy.

Young British Catholics attending the festival did not appear to be concerned by Pope Benedict XVI's rejection of birth control, homosexuality and sex outside marriage yesterday.

"This is not necessarily all about the Pope," said 18-year-old Richard Cheeseborough from Southwark in London.

" It is about meeting lots of young people from all over the world. You can talk to anyone. The atmosphere is fantastic," he said.

- THE INDEPENDENT