BRAZIL:Pope Benedict XVI waded into Brazil's debate on abortion at the start of a five-day visit to the country, and so set himself at odds with a government that is considering liberalising the country's strict abortion laws.
Speaking in Portuguese at São Paulo's international airport on his arrival, he said it was important to "promote respect for life from its conception until its natural decline".
On the flight from Rome, Pope Benedict told journalists that he stood by the Catholic Church's policy of excommunicating politicians who voted for legalisation.
Brazil's bishops have clashed recently with the country's new health minister who wants to hold a referendum on the country's abortion laws. Abortion can only be performed in Brazil in the event of rape or if a pregnancy threatens the life of the woman.
In a move that stoked Latin America's debate on abortion, Mexico City recently legalised the procedure. Abortion is severely restricted or banned outright across Latin America. Mexican bishops responded by saying they would excommunicate those politicians who voted for legalisation, a move backed by Pope Benedict.
An abortion referendum in Brazil would face severe opposition in a country where most politicians and ordinary citizens back the Catholic Church's position.
But although banned or severely restricted, abortions are commonplace in Latin America with between one and two million believed to be performed each year in Brazil alone.
Health minister José Gomes Temporão says the topic should be treated as a matter of public health and that the debate had too much of a "macho slant". "Women need to speak up, to be heard and not just men," he told journalists hours ahead of the pope's arrival.
"Unfortunately, men do not become pregnant. If they did, this question would have been resolved long ago."
One bishop responded to the minister's campaign to start up an abortion debate in Brazil by saying he should "be a minister of health and not of death" and focus on improving access to health services for the country's poor.
President Lula Inacio Lula da Silva, who was at São Paulo's international airport to welcome Pope Benedict, says he is personally against abortion.
But in an interview with Catholic radio stations on Monday, he said the state could not ignore the question "because if we do it will lead to the deaths of many young women in this country".
Abortion is one of two themes expected to dominate the pope's visit to the world's most populous country.
The other is how to confront the challenge the Catholic Church faces from new evangelical Protestant churches that have experienced explosive growth in recent decades.
An estimated 70 per cent of Brazilians today consider themselves Catholic, compared to 90 per cent when Pope John Paul II first visited the country in 1980. As a first step to revitalising the Latin American church, the pope said he wants "a more missionary Church" in the region.
He said the conference of Latin American bishops that he will open on Sunday in the Marian shrine of Aparecida "wants to find convincing answers" to the growth of the evangelical churches across Latin America.
This trip to Brazil by Pope Benedict, who turned 80 last month, is his first to the world's most-Catholic continent. Nearly half of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics are from Latin America.
The pope said the region was "fundamental" for the future of the Church and that its people would "conserve radical Christian values that will never be given up".
During his stay in the city, Pope Benedict will stay in the historic city centre monastery of Saint Benedict. Crowds gathered in the square in front of the monastery from before dawn to wait 12 hours for his blessing. Those waiting through the persistent drizzle were treated to a performance by the monastery's famous Gregorian choir.
There was a dissonant note struck about the pope's visit from within the Catholic Church's own ranks when several bishops criticised the amount of money Church authorities were spending on hosting the pope and on renovating sites he is to visit.
"So much food, so much drink, so much money, so much luxury. It goes against the gospel of Jesus Christ who never let himself be treated as a king. When he entered a palace, it was to be whipped," said retired bishop Tomás Balduíno of the arrangements made for the pope while in Brazil.
Bishop Balduíno is an adviser to the Church's Pastoral Land Commission, which fights for the rights of landless peasants. This group grew out of Brazil's progressive liberation theology movement which Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Ratzinger, opposed vigorously.