Shepherd I meets his dwindling flock

IT was a rare display of human connection from a Pontiff so often dismissed as distant and dogmatically out of date.

Benedict XVI’s Popemobile slowed to a standstill, its bullet-proof window was lowered and he leaned forward to kiss the head of a baby offered up to him from the crowd.

It is the closest Benedict has come to exhibiting the public warmth that made his predecessor John Paul II so popular among the faithful – even though JP2 shared the same unyielding, hardline theology.