It begins by noting a sharp decline in Church membership following revelations of clerical sexual abuse in the past year, then gives ample coverage to the protests planned to coincide with the pope's visit (five paragraphs), speaks at length of the Church in Germany's response to these demonstrations (five more paragraphs), and then at long last- and briefly, in a single paragraph- notes that:
While protests are expected to be well attended, the number of supporters planning to attend the pope's speeches far outweighs the expected number of protesters. Around 250,000 people have registered to attend his open-air masses in Berlin, Erfurt and Freiburg. Of them, 80,000 are set to attend his appearance at the Olympic Stadium in the generally Protestant or atheist Berlin, according to the German Bishops' Conference.
It dispatches the religious aspect of the visit with two quick sentences from the Pope:
"All this is not religious tourism, and it's even less a show," the pope told German television. "What it's about is the watchword: 'Where there's God, there's future.'"
And then pivots quickly to say that, oh yes, there are politics involved:
The trip isn't purely religious, either. During his visit to the eastern German state of Thuringia, Benedict is expected to speak about Germany's reunification. And in Freiburg, the pope plans to bestow an honor and a private audience on former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl for his role in bringing the country back together.
The structure and theme of the report is of conflict between a harried Church and its critics, while the religious message is obscure when succinctly noted. As with all secular coverage of this Pope's travels, one can practically hear the press slavering for a debacle. The protestors, though small relative to the faithful, are the story for the media, which hopes as always that they remain the focus.
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