Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday paid homage to more than 1,000 Roman Jews deported to Nazi death camps as he started a landmark visit to Rome's main synagogue. The 82-year-old pope began the much-anticipated visit under a cloud after angering many Jews by moving his wartime predecessor Pius XII, accused of inaction during the Holocaust, further on the road to sainthood.
As onlookers applauded, the German-born pope also stopped before an inscription marking a 1982 attack by Palestinian extremists that killed a two-year-old child and wounded 27 other people.
The tension surrounding Benedict's third visit to a Jewish house of worship is in stark contrast to the warm welcome reserved for his predecessor John Paul II, who became the first modern pope to visit a synagogue -- the same imposing temple on the banks of the Tiber -- in 1986.
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SIC: AP