ITALY: Pope Benedict XVI made the first trip of his pontificate yesterday and again tried to allay the concerns of other churches by pledging to work "with all my energy" to promote unity among Christianity's divided branches.
The Pope (78) also decried a world marked by unbridled consumerism and religious indifference that often seemed to put God in a corner and he urged Catholics to keep Sunday spiritual.
Just six weeks after his election, Pope Benedict flew by helicopter from the Vatican to the southern Adriatic port city of Bari to say a Mass for what organisers said was up to 200,000 people at the close of a national church congress.
In a scene made famous by his predecessor, Pope Benedict was driven in a bullet-proof "popemobile" through a rapturous crowd of faithful waving yellow-and-white Vatican flags.
The German Pope is not expected to travel as much as John Paul so there was great curiosity among the crowd. "I came here to size him up," one man said.
Bari is significant for inter-church relations because it is home to the relics of St Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop of Asia Minor revered by both the Western and Orthodox churches.
"Right here in Bari, the city that guards the bones of St Nicholas, a land of encounter and dialogue with our Christian brothers of the East, I repeat my intention to take up the fundamental commitment to work with all my energy to rebuild the full and visible unity of all of Christ's followers," Pope Benedict said.
The Pope, who was staying for only about three hours, spoke to the crowd from a huge white oval stage on the waterfront of the city that has for centuries been a gateway to the East.
When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope on April 19th, other churches expressed concern because of statements he had made as head of the Vatican's doctrinal department which had labelled other Christian denominations as inferior to Catholicism.
The Eastern and Western churches split in the Great Schism of 1054 and the Anglican and Protestant churches split from Rome in the 16th century.
But since his election, the new Pope has been at pains to show his commitment to inter-religious dialogue. "How can we communicate with the Lord if we don't communicate among ourselves?" he asked in his sermon.
He urged all Christians not to allow their souls to be gnawed away by "the termite of resentment" over past events but rather to "learn the great lesson of forgiveness". Security was tight and was coordinated from an Italian navy ship offshore.
Pope Benedict, who was protected from the sweltering sun by a large white umbrella, also used his homily to remind Catholics to keep Sunday holy.
He said Christians in the 21st century had the difficult task of living their faith in a world marked by "unbridled consumerism, religious indifference and a secularism that is closed to anything that is transcendent".