Pope Benedict on final day of visit to Turkey

Istanbul, Dec 1: Pope Benedict's tour of Turkey today winds up looking like an across-the-board success for his effort to repair battered relations with Turkey's Muslims.

Benedict infuriated many Muslims in September with a speech implying Islam was a violent faith, but won Turkish praise when he arrived on Tuesday by backing Ankara's bid to join the European Union and praising Islam as peaceful.

Yesterday, he made his first visit to a mosque, among the conciliatory gestures that won high praise from Istanbul's Grand Mufti Mustafa Cagrici.

''Your two-day visit to Istanbul has produced an incredibly positive outcome for Turkey. We thank you,'' he told the German-born pontiff after guiding him around the famous Blue Mosque, only the second mosque ever entered by any pope.

Benedict's predecessor John Paul became the first pope to visit a mosque in Damascus in 2001.

''The pope's visit and the messages he gave are creating great synergies for the dialogues between the two religions. We are very happy for the visit,'' Cagrici said afterwards.

The warm words echoed satisfied comments from Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who welcomed Benedict at Ankara airport on Tuesday and heard him clarify his views on Turkey's EU bid --which he had once opposed -- and on Islam.

Perhaps thanks to very heavy security, only scattered protests broke out during the visit, which organisers had feared might attract big demonstrations by nationalists and Islamists.

HONOURING ''GOOD POPE JOHN''

Benedict, 79, will start the day by celebrating mass at Istanbul's Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, which will be attended by the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who issued a joint declaration with him yesterday restating their desire to overcome the 1054 Great Schism between their two churches.

Before mass, he will inaugurate a statue of Pope John XXIII, who as Archbishop Angelo Roncalli was the Vatican representative in Istanbul from 1935 to 1944 and won many friends by learning Turkish and using it in his masses.

Benedict has repeatedly referred to Roncalli during his trip, especially his saying ''I love the Turks''.

Recognising the work he did for Turkey, Istanbul renamed the street behind the cathedral, where the Vatican delegation is located, Pope Roncalli Street in 2000.

During World War Two, Roncalli used his base in Istanbul to help Jews fleeing from the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, often sending in fake baptismal certificates so they could slip away.

Franz von Papen, the German ambassador in Ankara at the time who knew Roncalli well, said at the Nuremberg war crimes trials that the future pope had saved 24,000 Jews.

After the mass, Benedict will take a short rest at the Vatican delegation before flying back to Rome at midday.

REUTERS

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