BARCELONA Pope Benedict XVI has left Spain after a visit of less than 48 hours after a warm send-off by King Juan Carlos and a brief meeting with the the country s anticlerical prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero Zapatero has conspicuously absented himself from the papal visit to Spain

BARCELONA Pope Benedict s last visit today was to the Child Jesus Nen Deu project in Barcelona a home for the disabled run by Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart founded by an Anadalusian nun beatified in 2007 nbsp He greeted teenagers with learning difficulties many with Down s Syndrome

BARCELONA The liturgy was to die for There were more than 1 000 celebrants and the chief among them was pretty hard to beat And it helped to have the King and Queen of Spain in the congregation But the real star of Pope Benedict XVI s dedication this morning of the Sagrada Familia cathedral --

BARCELONA Ask an observer about Spanish religion and politics and most people will mention two Spains one left-wing and anti-Catholic the other Catholic and politically conservative That polarization existed long before the Civil War and was reinforced by Franco wrapping himself in the flag

BARCLELONA Hundreds of young Catholics who had gathered to celebrate Pope Benedict s arrival in the Catalan capital tonight with candles and songs were rewarded with a three-minute papal blessing from the Archbishop s balcony They chanted s iacute s iacute s iacute el Papa ya est aacute aq

BARCELONA Over on the other side of Spain speaking in the Plaza del Obradoiro outside the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela Pope Benedict has issued a bracing and often lyrical call for Europe to see faith as our guiding star in the night of time From this place as a messenger of the Gosp

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