Pope Benedict has just enjoyed one of the great spectacles of European Catholicism -- the swinging of the giant incense-burner of Santiago de Compostela cathedral known as the botafumeiro roughly smoke-launcher Five feet high weighing 60 kilos and reaching speeds of 40 miles an hour as it s

BARCELONA After kissing the relics of St James the Pope in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela has just finished a speech in which he recalled the proper meaning of pilgrimage and spoke of the inseparability of freedom and truth Both speak to concerns of the Spanish Church The popularity o

BARCELONA As I write the Pope is outside the wonderful 800-year-old cathedral at Santiago de Compostela the destination of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across Europe -- and has donned a typical pilgrim s outfit complete with scallop shell Many history books have been written about th

BARCELONA Pope Benedict on the plane to Spain told journalists that there was a very strong clash between faith and modernity in Spain and he called for dialogue not confrontation PA here He spoke of the anticlericalism which erupted in Spain in the 1930s in the run-up to the Spanish Civil War

BARCELONA The Pope has landed at a foggy Lavacolla airport near Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain touching down punctually at 11 30 where he has been greeted by the heir apparent Prince Felipe of Asturias and Princess Letizia together with the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela J

In the mid-1960s in response to conservative Catholics rsquo intense criticism of Dan Berrigan rsquo s outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam his superiors sent him to Latin America Although his supporters saw it as an exile his three months in several Latin American countries had its posit