Pope in Berlin for first state visit to native Germany

The pope has arrived in Berlin for his first state visit to his nativeGermany amid the now customary protests against his leadership of the Catholic church.

Benedict XVI – born Joseph Ratzinger in Marktl, Bavaria, 84 years ago – was given the red carpet treatment at Berlin's Tegel airport, where he was met by German chancellor Angela Merkel and president Christian Wulff at the start of his four-day visit.

He will give a speech in parliament later, which around 100 MPs have vowed to boycott over what they consider a violation of Germany's separation of church and state. Another 10,000 protesters are expected to demonstrate outside.

The pope plans meetings with leaders of Germany's Jewish and Muslim communities, three masses, an ecumenical service with Lutheran church members and possibly meetings with victims abused by priests.

The Vatican's views on contraception, the role of women, homosexuality and its handling of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked Germany last year are seen by many in Germany as outdated and out-of-touch.

On the plane from Rome, the pope told reporters that he thought demonstrations were acceptable as long as they remained civil.

They are "normal in a free society and in the secularised world," he said.

He said he believed there needs to be an examination of why people have been leaving the church recently, and the part that the abuse scandals played in the phenomenon.

"I can understand that some people have been scandalised by the crimes that have been revealed in recent times," he said.

More than 250,000 people are registered to attend his masses, including about 70,000 who plan to be at the open-air service on Thursday night in Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

Bild, Germany's biggest tabloid, has shown its support for the pope by hanging an enormous poster on the side of its high-rise headquarters in Berlin's Kreuzberg district. "Wir sind Papst" is the slogan, meaning "We are pope", the headline the newspaper chose for its front page the day after Joseph Ratzinger was chosen to succeed John Paul II in April 2005.

The pontiff is expected to draw bigger crowds when he travels to Germany's more Catholic south. Of the 3.4 million people who live in largely atheist Berlin, 660 000 are protestants, 210 000 are Muslim and just 90 000 are classed as "other Christians".