AUSTRIA:German-born Pope Benedict XVI leaves for Austria tomorrow to pay tribute to Austrians killed by the Nazis and encourage the country's Catholic Church, which is still living in the shadow of a sex abuse scandal.
The main purpose of the three-day visit - his first trip to a German-speaking country outside his homeland - is to mark the 850th anniversary of the Austrian shrine of Mariazell, one of Europe's most important sanctuaries dedicated to Mary. But the visit has wider ramifications, as he will discuss global issues in talks with the diplomatic corps of Vienna, home to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Shortly after he arrives tomorrow morning, he will briefly pay tribute to victims of the Holocaust, killed after his native Germany annexed Austria in 1938, by praying at the memorial for Austrian victims of the Shoah in Vienna's Judenplatz.
Some 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Before the second World War, there were 200,000 Jews in Austria. There are about 10,000 today.
Pope Benedict, who has made good relations with Jews one of the hallmarks of his papacy, last year visited Auschwitz.
The Austrian church is still feeling the effects of a sex abuse scandal that forced the late archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, to retire after allegations that he had molested a schoolboy 20 years earlier.
A recent poll said a majority of the people of Austria, which is nominally about 72 per cent Catholic, said either the church had disappointed them or they were indifferent to it.