More than 100,000 back pope in row with scientists
VATICAN CITY (AFP) — More than 100,000 people filled St Peter's Square on Sunday in a show of support for Pope Benedict XVI after protests by scientists forced him to cancel a university speech.
The pilgrims gave a roar of approval when the Pope Benedict, speaking after his weekly blessing, said: "I encourage all of you, dear academics, to always be respectful of the opinions of others, and to seek the truth and the good with an open and responsible mind."
The 80-year-old head of the Roman Catholic Church cancelled a planned speech at Rome's La Sapienza university Thursday after dozens of professors and students protested his presence at the secular school.
"I want especially to salute university youths, professors and all of you who have come today in such large numbers to St Peter's Square to ... express your solidarity," the pope said.
In a rare unscripted exhortation at the end of the appearance from his apartment overlooking the iconic square, the pope said: "Let us go forward in this spirit of fraternity and love for freedom and truth, and common commitment for a brotherly and tolerant society."
The final burst of applause from the pilgrims, including La Sapienza students, lasted some three minutes.
A Vatican spokesman put at 200,000 the number of pilgrims at the event -- billed in the Italian media as "pope day" -- holding up banners with slogans such as "Holy Father We Love You" and "Long Live Freedom of Thought."
Tens of thousands more supporters watched video links of the event outside the Milan cathedral and in Verona, Italian media reported.
The cancellation of the pope's speech drew criticism from across the political spectrum in Italy.
Deputy Prime Minister Francesco Rutelli attended Sunday's rally, as well as former justice minister Clemente Mastella, who resigned just last week to face corruption charges.
University Minister Fabio Mussi raised a dissenting voice, saying the politicians' presence at the event "smacked of exploitation."
Prime Minister Romano Prodi called late Sunday on Italy to "bring a definitive end to this tension" and not allow the Sapienza affair to become "an open wound."
The protest at La Sapienza, one of Italy's largest and oldest universities, was spearheaded by Marcello Cini, a professor emeritus of physics, who said that to have the pope preside over the start of a new academic year would be an "incredible violation" of the school's autonomy.
Sixty-seven professors and researchers of the university's physics department, as well as radical students, joined in the call for the pope to stay away.
The incident "was a shock for most Italians, whatever their opinions on other subjects," said Marco Politi, a Vatican expert at the Italian daily La Repubblica. "In Italy, to attack the pope's person ... is to violate a taboo," Politi told AFP.
But Paolo Flores D'Arcais, who writes for a prestigious philosophy magazine, MicroMega, said: "This is the world upside down. The pope ... is posing as a victim. He's the one who decided not to go to the university, where he could have spoken."
Students opposed to the pope's visit staged "an anti-clergy week" during which they showed a film on Galileo, the 17th-century physicist who fell foul of Church doctrine by insisting that the Earth orbits the Sun.
Galileo was convicted of heresy by the Inquisition -- the predecessor of the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, that the pope formerly headed as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
The cancellation of the speech at La Sapienza, which has a student body of some 130,000, was the first in Benedict's diary since he became pope in April 2005.
Benedict's predecessor John Paul II was loudly heckled when he spoke at La Sapienza in 1991.
