Top security in place as Munich awaits Pope Benedict

MUNICH, Germany, Sep 9 (Reuters) Pope Benedict returns to his Bavarian roots today when he starts a nostalgic six-day trip to his southern German homeland and some of its most traditionally Catholic places.

Over 5,000 police were deployed around the Bavarian state capital, where many streets were blocked off awaiting his late afternoon drive through the city, prayers at its main square and meetings with political leaders at the old royal residence.

''We are also posting sharpshooters,'' police chief Wilhelm Schmidbauer told journalists yesterday.

During the visit, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger will also visit his birthplace in Marktl am Inn, a shrine to the Virgin Mary at Altoetting and the university city of Regensburg where he once taught theology.

The way Benedict, 79, has spoken about his trip makes it sound like he is undertaking it as possibly his last visit to his homeland.

But he has also set an ambitious goal of reviving the faith in Germany, which like other prosperous Western states has seen religious practice fall dramatically in recent decades.

''With all my heart, I want the visit to my homeland to reawaken the joy in Christianity,'' he wrote in a letter to the Catholic weekly Muenchner Kirchenzeitung.

He is also expected to renew his call for Europe to acknowledge its Christian roots, an issue he discussed last week with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Vatican.

Benedict will meet Merkel, German President Horst Koehler and Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber at the former residence of the Wittelsbach dynasty that ruled Bavaria from 1180 to 1918.

NO GLASS BOTTLES OR UMBRELLAS Munich police have issued strict guidelines for the faithful coming to see the pope, including bans on glass bottles, prams, umbrellas and folding chairs. Police began on Monday hauling away bicycles found locked along the roads the pope will use.

The city has brought in 18 subway cars from Frankfurt and Stuttgart to help bring people towards the fairgrounds east of the city where an open-air mass will take place tomorrow.

But they will still have long stretches to walk, and older people have been warned the walk and long wait to see the pope could be too much for them to handle.

Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich from 1977 until he left for Rome in 1982 to become the top doctrinal authority in the Vatican -- a job he held until he was elected in April 2005 to succeed Pope John Paul.

His role as stern defender of the faith, much criticised by many German Catholic activists, has mellowed since his election and even once-critical media now take a more relaxed view.

Munich's liberal Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily said the pope had a conservative standpoint ''but large parts of German public opinion don't see it as a demonstration against a modern, pluralistic society.

''It's interesting to see how many politicians, commentators and journalists in a country traditionally critical of the papacy are waiting for some form of guidance from the Pontiff,'' it wrote in an editorial.

REUTERS PDM PM1724