IT was a rare display of human connection from a Pontiff so often dismissed as distant and dogmatically out of date.

The Pope’s visit to Britain this week will allow the country to gain “fresh energy and inspiration” from its “rich Christian inheritance”, a leading Catholic said today.

IT was hard to know which shone the brightest, the searing sun on our backs, the scalding giant arc lamps of the TV cameras or the beatific smile on the face of Benedict XVI.

Pope John Paul II drove in his Popemobile yesterday to the heart of Rome to appear before several thousand worshippers and pray for peace and for victims of wars and violence.

Pope John Paul concluded his trip down memory lane today with a Mass at a mountain monastery where he used to pray as a boy.

HIS voice trembling with exhaustion and infirmity, Pope John Paul II told Mexicans yesterday it was "with deep joy" that he would canonise the Roman Catholic Church's first American Indian saint.