Pope Benedict XVI has begun the first state visit to his German homeland, seeking to stem the tide of Catholics leaving the church while acknowledging the damage caused by the clerical sex abuse scandal.

The bones of Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, have been removed from their grave in a small Bavarian town after it became a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis.

I VISIT Ireland regularly and treasure the Angelus on radio and television. As a young Lutheran it does not have the same resonance for me that it does for many Irish Catholics, but I can still respect the wordless but eloquent daily gesture.

Germany’s highest court today ruled that shops must remain closed on Sundays, overturning new rules in Berlin that allowed them to open seven days a week.

Ground-breaking talks between the Government and religious bodies began in Dublin today.

CATHOLICISM never looked as universal, the original meaning of ‘catholic’, as it did when it paid final homage yesterday to Pope John Paul, one of the giants of the Church’s 2,000-year history.

NEW statistics on religious diversity show the US’s historic Protestant majority has plummeted to 52%, and by the end of 2004 it may no longer be the nation’s dominant religious group.