Soul-searching in Italy after Pope scraps speech

|PIC1|University students poured into Vatican City on Wednesday to show their support for Pope Benedict after student protests forced him to cancel a speech at Rome's top public college.

The German Pope decided late on Tuesday not to deliver an address at La Sapienza University on Thursday after protests by a small but vociferous group of students and faculty members. Some occupied part of the campus to demand he stay away.

Many Italians condemned the protests, saying they smacked of censorship. Politicians and pundits used words like "shame" and "humiliation" to describe the national mood.

The Pope smiled a welcome to university students who showed up at his general audience. As he entered the audience hall, they shouted "Freedom!" in reference to his right to free speech.

"If the Pope won't come to La Sapienza, La Sapienza will come to the Pope," read one banner held by students.

The vicar of Rome, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, invited Romans to show their support for the Pope by coming to St Peter's Square on Sunday for his weekly prayer. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told the university rector the visit had been cancelled because it lacked "prerequisites for a dignified and tranquil welcome".

The Vatican issued the text of the speech the Pope was to have delivered - a complex academic lecture on faith, reason, humanism, philosophy and the mission of universities.

In it, he acknowledged that various things said by theologians over the centuries had "been proven false by history".

CENSORSHIP?

Since his election in 2005, the conservative Pope has fought what he sees as efforts to restrict the voice of the Church in the public sphere - particularly in Europe.

But the public stands he has taken on issues ranging from abortion and gay marriage to euthanasia have led critics in Italy to accuse him of meddling in politics.

The protesters said that if the Pope wanted to speak, he could do so from the Vatican.

They criticised his views on science, saying a speech he gave in 1990 showed he would have favoured the Church's 17th century heresy trial against Galileo. The Vatican said the protesters misunderstood that speech, made some 17 years ago when the Pope was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Student leader Francesco Raparelli called the protests "a tremendous victory".

But the hostility towards the Pope's appearance at La Sapienza, founded by a pope more than 700 years ago, outraged free speech advocates, even some who have criticised him in the past.

The leading newspaper Corriere della Sera ran a frontpage editorial headlined "A Defeat for the Country" and left-leaning La Repubblica called the protests against the Pope "sick".

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano wrote to the Pope condemning "demonstrations of intolerance".

The episode drew out allies of all stripes who condemned the students' actions, ranging from Rome's chief rabbi to outspoken Church critic Dario Fo, a Nobel Prize winning writer.

"Being secular does not mean closing your ears when someone who is religiously inspired speaks," said Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, who has invited the Pope to speak at his synagogue.