Malta Welcomes Pope as Voyage Nears End

VALLETTA, Malta â€”  Returning to one of the bastions of his church, Pope John Paul II began the final leg of a historic pilgrimage Tuesday with words of praise for Malta’s Christian devotion that stretches back to converts of the apostle Paul.

“You have a spiritual and moral heritage,� the pope said after arriving in the Mediterranean island nation, which he first visited 11 years ago.

The stop comes near the end of a six-day trip that included landmark gestures of reconciliation in Greece and Syria. The voyage appeared to take a physical toll on the 80-year-old pontiff, who at times appeared near exhaustion.

A strong breeze ruffled his hair and white vestments as he disembarked from the plane that carried him from Damascus, the Syrian capital. It then carried away a portion of the red carpet rolled out for him. The Maltese president, Guido De Marco, steadied the pope as he wavered in the gusts.

The pope is also being buffeted by events from earlier stages of the pilgrimage to retrace the steps of Paul. Some media commentators and others have assailed the pontiff for not clearly condemning the comments of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who likened Israelis to betrayers of Jesus. The Vatican said only that the pope and the Roman Catholic Church have often denounced anti-Semitism.

In Moscow, leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church have not fully welcomed the pope’s apology in Athens for Catholic misdeeds against the Orthodox branch--raising the possibility of serious divisions within Eastern Orthodox churches over whether to heal a nearly 1,000-year estrangement with the Vatican.