Pope home after pilgrimage

The pope with Maltese President Guido Di Marco (right)

VALLETTA, Malta -- Pope John Paul II has returned to Rome after a six-day pilgrimage to Greece, Syria and Malta retracing the footsteps of St Paul.

Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi was at Rome's Ciampino Airport to welcome him after his short flight from the Maltese capital Valletta.

Earlier, the pope celebrated mass in Valletta before more than 200,000 people -- half the island's population.

After hearing of recent developments in the Middle East, the Roman Catholic leader prayed for an end to the cycle of violence.

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He said: "Once again, today, we hear sad news from the Holy Land of terrible violence even against innocent young people. We must intensify our prayers for peace in the land of Jesus."

Two 14-year-old Israeli boys were found bludgeoned to death in a cave near a Jewish West Bank settlement. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called them victims of "Palestinian terror."

Later, a three-month-old Palestinian girl and her mother were injured in the Gaza Strip by shrapnel from Israeli tank shells.

The pope's appeal was a sombre departure from a day set aside for celebrations.

He elevated three Maltese religious figures to the final step before possible sainthood in honouring Malta's deep Christian roots that stretch back to the shipwreck of the Apostle Paul in A.D. 60.

The open-air beatification ceremony was for two Maltese priests and a nun who lived in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The pilgrimage, during which he prayed for Middle East peace on the frontline Golan Heights, was the 80-year-old Pontiff's first outside Italy this year and the 93rd foreign trip of his pontificate.

In a written papal statement before his departure, he said: "The future of peace in the world depends on strengthening dialogue and understanding between cultures and religions."

The trip was the last of the pope's biblical travels for the millennium. Last year, he visited Egypt and the Holy Land.

The pontiff, who has battled fatigue during the trip, also offered a personal note to others slowed by age and illness.

"I remember and feel very close to the elderly," he said. "To the sick I say: Have hope and be strong."

Nearly 98 percent of Malta's 392,000 people are baptized Roman Catholics, and divorce and abortion are illegal.

The pontiff's two-day visit to the Roman Catholic Church's oldest bastion of faith in Europe is his second in 11 years.

A predominantly Catholic country, despite 200 years of Arab occupation, Malta fell under Christian influence after St Paul's ship carrying him to Rome as a prisoner was shipwrecked on its rocky eastern coast in AD 60.

The account of the shipwreck is given in the Acts of the Apostles, making Malta one of the very few countries to be mentioned specifically in the Bible.

The pope's Malta visit came after landmark visits to Greece, where he asked for forgiveness for 1,000 years of Catholic sins against the Orthodox, and Syria, where he became the first pontiff to enter a mosque in Islam's 1,400-year history.

The pope has beatified 1,235 people in his 23-year papacy and has elevated 477 people to sainthood. This is nearly equal to the totals from all previous popes during the past 400 years.

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