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Former Pope Benedict makes first trip to native Germany in a decade

Former pope Benedict XVI travelled from the Vatican to Germany on Thursday to visit his sick brother, officials said, in his first trip abroad since his shock resignation in 2013.

Former Pope Benedict makes first trip to native Germany in a decade
Pope Benedict in Vatican City in June 2018. Photo: DPA

The unexpected trip to the Bavarian city of Regensburg was described as “a  private visit” made necessary by the deteriorating health of Benedict's  96-year-old brother Georg Ratzinger, said Clemens Neck, a spokesman for the Regensburg bishopric.

READ ALSO: Catholic Church in Germany: Former Pope Benedict speaks of attempts to 'silence' him

“It might be the last time the brothers see each other in this world,” Neck  told AFP.

The Vatican confirmed the trip and said the only other time 93-year-old  Benedict had left the Vatican since his resignation was a visit to the Castel Gandolfo papal palace outside Rome.

It is believed to be his first time back in Germany since 2011.

Benedict, seen as a traditionalist in the Catholic Church, stunned the  world when he became the first pope in 600 years to resign, citing health  reasons.

The former pontiff, whose original name is Joseph Ratzinger, now lives in a  small former monastery inside the Vatican and has largely stayed out of the  public eye.

“I wish Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI a good stay in Germany and the necessary  rest to privately look after his brother,” Georg Baetzing, the head of the  German Bishops' Conference, said in a statement.

The trip comes just days after numerous EU countries reopened their borders to Europeans as coronavirus lockdowns are eased..

Given his own frail health, Benedict was travelling with a doctor and a nurse, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told reporters in Rome.

He will stay in Regensburg as long as necessary, Bruni added.

The two siblings have a “firm” bond, according to the official Vatican News site, which said that Georg had made regular trips to Rome to see his brother over the years.

Both were ordained priests on the same day in June 1951, it added.

Georg Ratzinger went on to conduct the thousand-year-old Regensburg cathedral choir, known as the Regensburger Domspatzen.

But the renowned choir fell under the shadow of the Catholic Church's child abuse scandal after a 2017 report found that more than 500 choir boys suffered sexual or physical abuse at the institute from 1945 to the early 1990s.

The report criticised senior Church figures for failing to do enough to prevent the abuse, including Georg Ratzinger who led the choir from 1964 to 1994.

Ratzinger has said he knew nothing about the violence at the school.

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RELIGION

Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

The Sunni Muslim world's most prestigious educational institution, Al-Azhar in Egypt, has called for the boycott of Swedish and Dutch products after far-right activists destroyed Korans in those countries.

Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

Al-Azhar, in a statement issued on Wednesday, called on “Muslims to boycott Dutch and Swedish products”.

It also urged “an appropriate response from the governments of these two countries” which it charged were “protecting despicable and barbaric crimes in the name of ‘freedom of expression'”.

Swedish-Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan on Saturday set fire to a copy of the Muslim holy book in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, raising tensions as Sweden courts Ankara over its bid to join Nato.

EXPLAINED:

The following day, Edwin Wagensveld, who heads the Dutch chapter of the German anti-Islam group Pegida, tore pages out of the Koran during a one-man protest outside parliament.

Images on social media also showed him walking on the torn pages of the holy book.

The desecration of the Koran sparked strong protests from Ankara and furious demonstrations in several capitals of the Muslim world including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned” the Koran burning, expressing “deep concern at the recurrence of such events and the recent Islamophobic escalation in a certain number of European countries”.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson condemned Paludan’s actions as “deeply disrespectful”, while the United States called it “repugnant”.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday said the burning was the work of “a provocateur” who “may have deliberately sought to put distance between two close partners of ours – Turkey and Sweden”.

On Tuesday, Turkey postponed Nato accession talks with Sweden and Finland, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Stockholm for allowing weekend protests that included the burning of the Koran.

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