ROME is gearing up for another huge influx of pilgrims to celebrate the enthronement of Pope Benedict XVI tomorrow.

The open-air inaugural Mass will take place on St Peter’s Square, where the new Pope — then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — delivered his funeral oration before John Paul II’s coffin two weeks ago.

This time he will be the figure in papal white, surrounded by the red-robed cardinals who elected him on Tuesday.

The enthronement ceremony, which dates from medieval times, used to involve a papal tiara, or crown, being placed on the new Pope’s head, but this was sold during Paul VI’s papacy to raise money for the poor on the ground that “monarchical” symbolism was inappropriate to the modern age. Instead Benedict XVI, like his predecessors John Paul I and John Paul II, will don a bishop’s mitre.

In the past the Pope was carried into the square on a portable throne, the sedia gestatoria, but no more: he walks, and sits on the papal throne before a plain altar flanked by the Gospels in Latin and Greek. But he will have placed round his neck a pallium, a white woollen stole decorated with black crosses and precious stones.

As he places the pallium round the Pope, the Cardinal Deacon, Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez of Chile, will say in Latin: “Blessed be God who has chosen you to be pastor of the Universal Church, and has clothed you with the shining stole of your apostolate. May you reign gloriously through many years of earthly light, until — called by the Lord — you are reclothed with the stole of immortality.”

The cardinals will then process up to the papal throne to kiss the Pope’s newly made ring — the “Fisherman’s Ring”, which is smashed when a Pope dies. He then delivers a homily, which will be scrutinised for signs of policy in the new era.

Half a million pilgrims are expected in Rome, many from Germany. King Juan Carlos of Spain and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany will attend, but most heads of state and government who attended the funeral of John Paul II will not be returning. The British Government will be represented by Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor; the United States by Jeb Bush, the Governor of Florida; France by Jean- Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister.

The Pope will meet government delegations immediately after his inauguration. On Monday he will meet the Archibishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, for the first time. Also present will be one of the leaders of the Anglican Communion’s traditionalist wing, Dr Drexel Gomez, Archbishop of the West Indies, but Bishop Frank Griswold, the liberal Primate of the Anglican Church in the US, will not be present. Benedict XVI appears eager to usher in an era of closeness between the two communions.

The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, said the Pope had also invited him to attend the enthronement. He was unable to do so because it coincided with the Jewish Passover, but the invitation had brought “surprise, pleasure and hope for the future”. The Pope had sent him a letter invoking “the help of the Almighty” to “strengthen collaboration with the sons and daughters of the Jewish people”.

The new Pope’s brother Georg, a retired priest, said he would be attending.

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