Pope Benedict XVI will become the second pontiff in history to enter a synagogue when he visits his native Germany next month.

In a sign of his determination to mend fences with Judaism and other world religions, the Pope has announced that he will visit the Jewish place of worship in Cologne, which was destroyed by the Nazis but rebuilt after the Second World War.

The symbolic visit will mark only the second time in the Church’s 2,000-year history that a Pope has visited a synagogue. Pope Benedict’s four-day trip to Cologne to attend World Youth Day from August 18-21 will be his first foreign journey since he was elected in April after the death of Pope John II.

The late Pope made dialogue with other faiths a hallmark of his pontificate, visiting the Rome synagogue in 1986 and becoming the first Pope to enter a mosque during a visit to Damascus in May 2001.

Today Pope Benedict, who is on holiday in the Italian Alps, said that acts of terror must not be allowed to damage the dialogue between Islam, Christianity and Judaism. "Terrorism is irrational", he observed. He said it was wrong to conclude from attacks such as those in London on 7 July that the long predicted "clash of civilisations" between Islam and the West was under way. "There are only small groups of fanatics," he said. "We can only pray that the desire for religious dialogue proves stronger than violence."

The Pope will not visit a mosque during his German trip, but he will address representatives of the Muslim community at the headquarters of the Cologne archdiocese. There was concern among both Jews and Muslims when the new Pope was chosen, since as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he had defended Catholic orthodoxy and Europe’s "Christian values" as the Vatican’s hardline "doctrinal enforcer".

The fact that he served briefly in the Hitler Youth as a teenager towards the end of the Second World War also raised eyebrows. However aides point out that membership was compulsory, that he was never a member of the Nazi party, that he deserted his unit, and that he came from an anti-Nazi family.

Vatican sources also say that as John Paul II’s right hand man, Benedict, far from resisting the late Pope’s dialogue with other faiths, was one of its main architects. Since his election Benedict has displayed a warmer, more outgoing image, and the Vatican has skilfully spread the message that his previous image as an austere and doctrinaire hardliner was misplaced.

One of Benedict’s first acts as pontiff was to assure Jewish leaders that dialogue with "the sons and daughters of the Jewish people" was among his top priorities. After meeting a 25-strong Jewish delegation last month June he agreed to put on hold the proposed beatification of Father Leon Dehon, a French priest accused of rabid anti-Semitism.

Benedict is expected to deliver a key address during his visit to the Cologne synagogue, which was razed to the ground during the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom but rebuilt in the 1950s. He will also hold talks with the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the opposition leader Angela Merkel, and take a cruise on the Rhine.

Explore World News

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Congo's rangers risk their lives to guard gorillas
• Pearl farming in China losing its lustre
• Axl Rose mystery as album arrives at last