Visiting pope honors Austrian Jews

VIENNA, Austria -- Pope Benedict XVI paid solemn tribute to Holocaust victims as he began a three-day pilgrimage to Austria on Friday.

The German-born pontiff performed quiet prayers under pelting rain before an austere stone memorial honoring the 65,000 Viennese Jews who perished in Nazi death camps. It also commemorates others burned at the stake in the 1400s after refusing to convert.

Earlier in the day, Benedict told reporters on his flight to Austria that the visit to Vienna's Judenplatz, or Jewish Square, was intended to show "our sadness, our repentance and our friendship to the Jewish people."

Most of Austria's 200,000 Jews fled the country when it was annexed by Hitler, and many of those who remained ended up in concentration camps -- 65,000 of them perished there, and today only about 10,000 Jews live in Austria.

Alluding to the nation's Nazi past, President Heinz Fischer conceded in a greeting to the pope that Austria had "dark hours in its history."

Benedict, making his seventh foreign trip in two years as pope, professed his affection for the mostly Catholic country, telling Austrians he felt "a vivid sense ... of being at home here in your midst."

"This cultural space in the heart of Europe transcends borders and brings together ideas and energies from various parts of the continent," Benedict told Fischer and other dignitaries at a military welcome hastily moved inside an airport hangar because of the poor weather.

The pope also delivered what Vatican officials described as his only major policy speech of the trip, addressing the Austrian leadership and the diplomatic corps.

Vienna is home to international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

In his address, the pope touched upon many of his favorite themes, such as the need for Europe to not forget its Christian roots, and the need to regulate globalization by protecting poorer nations and the poor in wealthier nations.

He also reaffirmed his opposition to abortion and euthanasia and called on politicians to adopt legislation that would encourage couples to establish new families.

"I appeal to political leaders not to allow children to be considered a form of illness nor to abolish in practice your legal system's acknowledgment that abortion is wrong" he said. "I say this out of concern for humanity."

It is the first papal visit to Austria since the late Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage in 1998.

Benedict said his main aim was to visit Central Europe's most important Marian sanctuary in Mariazell, about 60 miles southwest of Vienna.

He will attend an open-air Mass there on Saturday to commemorate the 850th anniversary of the famous shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Benedict's visit concludes on Sunday with a Mass at Vienna's St Stephen's Cathedral and a visit to the Heiligenkreuz abbey outside the capital.

The pope's trip to Austria is also seen as an opportunity to heal a country still reeling from a sex abuse scandal that caused the resignations of Vienna's archbishop in 1995 and the closure of a seminary near Vienna in 2004, after some 40,000 pornographic photographs were discovered on computers there.

Recent polls published in the local press suggest that church attendance is now believed to be around only 10 percent among Austria's roughly 6 million Catholics.

Benedict is quite familiar with Austria, a German-speaking country where he vacationed when he was young and before becoming pope two years ago. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Rome Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci contributed to this report.

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