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Answering questions from journalists aboard his flight to Australia, Benedict touched briefly on the turmoil in the Anglican church.

"I am praying so that there are no more schisms and fractures" within the Anglican community, Benedict said.

On Monday, the Church of England's ruling body voted its support for women to become bishops. That stance risks causing further division among Anglicans, since traditionalists are opposed to that idea...

The trip builds on a flurry of diplomatic activity in the past month as regional countries have moved to upgrade ties with Baghdad, write off debts and talk about rebuilding Iraq.

Maliki will visit Germany from July 21-23 and Italy from July 24-25.

With violence at its lowest since early 2004, Maliki is expected to push the message that Iraq has emerged from civil war and is now throwing out the welcome mat for investment.

"Maliki wants ... to enhance Iraq's legitimacy and use the improved security to kickstart diplomatic and economic ties," said Hashim Hassan, a lecturer in media at Baghdad University.

Iraqi PM to visit Europe and meet pope

Maliki, who met the pope for 20 minutes at the pontiff's summer residence, also denied in comments to reporters afterward that minority Christians were being persecuted by Muslims in Iraq.

"We renewed our invitation for his holiness to visit Iraq. He welcomed the invitation. And we hope that he will be making the visit as soon as he can," he said.

"His visit would represent support for the efforts of love and peace in Iraq," he added.

The late Pope John Paul wanted to visit Iraq in 2000 but was denied permission by the government of Saddam Hussein.

Maliki invites Pope to visit Iraq

Iraqi PM says troop withdrawal must satisfy all

Italy returns antiquities looted from Iraq

Heaven is not an abstract idea or an imaginary place, but heaven is God, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Celebrating an early morning Mass Aug. 15, the pope said the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary "urges us to raise our gaze toward heaven, not a heaven of abstract ideas nor an imaginary heaven created in art, but the true reality of heaven which is God himself. God is heaven."


Reuters

During the Mass in the small parish Church of St. Thomas, located on the main square in Castel Gandolfo, the pope said that while Mary's assumption is "totally unique and extraordinary," it also assures believers that their destiny, like hers, is to be with God forever.

God is "our goal, he is the dwelling place from which we came and toward which we are called," the pope told about 200 people who had crowded into the church, while hundreds of others watched on a large screen erected in the square.


"We are all children of God the father, brothers and sisters of Jesus, children of our mother Mary," the pope said. "And all of us want happiness, and that happiness is found in God."

Pope Benedict said Mary, as the loving mother of her son's followers, "helps us, encourages us so that every moment of our existence would be a step in this journey toward God."

"Gazing at Mary, assumed into heaven, we understand better that our everyday lives -- although marked by problems and difficulties -- flow like a river toward the divine ocean, toward the fullness of joy and peace," he said.


Reuters

The pope said that in a world marked by "the sad spectacle of so much false joy and, at the same time, so much agonizing pain," Christians must learn to be like Mary, "signs of hope and consolation."

At midday, Pope Benedict recited the Angelus with visitors gathered in the courtyard of the papal summer villa.

He said that while the last mention of Mary in the Bible places her with the apostles awaiting the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the church teaches that she was taken, body and soul, "from the earth to heaven."

"This firm conviction of the church found its coronation in the dogmatic definition of the Assumption pronounced by my venerable predecessor Pius XII in the year 1950," he said.

In his reflection before the Angelus, from the courtyard of the pontifical residence in Castel Gandolfo, the pope also explained the biblical and theological foundations of this feast, which expresses a "firm conviction of the Church, [which] found its highest expression in the dogmatic definition of the Assumption, proclaimed by my venerable predecessor Pius XII in 1950".

The pontiff's explanations seemed to be intended to smooth over the difficulties that the Protestants and Orthodox have in accepting this dogma: "In the Bible, the last reference to her earthly life is found at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, which presents Mary gathered in prayer together with the disciples in the upper room, waiting for the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14). Following this, a twofold tradition - in Jerusalem and in Ephesus - attests to her 'dormition', as the Eastern [Christians] call it, her 'falling asleep' in God. This was the event that preceded her passage from earth into Heaven, which is the confession of the uninterrupted faith of the Church. In the eighth century, for example, John Damascene, establishing a direct relationship between the 'dormition' of Mary and the death of Jesus, explicitly affirms the truth of her bodily assumption. In a famous homily, he writes: 'It was necessary that she who had carried the Creator as a child in her womb should live together with Him in the tabernacles of heaven' (Homily II on the Dormition, PG 96, 741 B)".

"As Vatican Council II teaches", Benedict XVI continued, "the Most Holy Virgin Mary must always be situated in the mystery of Christ and of the Church. In this perspective, 'just as the Mother of Jesus, glorified in body and soul in heaven, is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected is the world to come, so too does she shine forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come..

Pope: Feast of the Assumption, trip to Lourdes in view

Daniel Anrig, who has a law degree, is currently head of police in canton Glarus in central Switzerland. He will take over from Commandant Elmar Mäder in December.

The Swiss Guards with their colourful antiquated uniforms have been serving pontiffs for more than 500 years. The 1998 killing of a guard commander and his wife in a Vatican City apartment tarnished the guards' image for a time. The male guards number about 110 and must be Swiss Catholics. They stand guard at papal ceremonies as well as help to protect the pope. Vatican and Italian police also protect the pontiff.

The 36-year-old new commandant is married to a theologian and has four children. He earlier headed Glarus' criminal police force, and served as a Swiss Guard in the early 1990s.

Pope names new Swiss Guard commandant

"The first thing he said to us was, 'We will continue the Schulerkreis,'" recalled the Rev. D. Vincent Twomey, an Irish theologian who studied under Ratzinger at the University of Regensburg in the 1970s.The Schulerkreis, or "student circle," is a seminar/retreat that Benedict holds with his ex-graduate students every summer. This year's session will be held Aug. 30, at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence southeast of Rome.

This special retreat allows Benedict to reprise a cherished earlier role. "It's an opportunity for the pope to enjoy what he would have loved to have done full time, namely, be a theologian and writer and discuss with his colleagues issues of importance," Twomey said.

Ratzinger's celebrated academic career ended in 1977, when Pope John Paul II named him archbishop of Munich and Freising. The following year, at the request of former students from several German universities, he began the Schulerkreis, which will hold its 30th annual session this month. Most participants are Catholic priests, but attendees also include lay men and women, who come from as far away as India and California, and number as many as 40 at a time, according to the group's secretary, the Rev. Stephan O. Horn. Not surprisingly, turnout has been especially strong since Benedict became pope.

While the retreat comprises several days of academic discussion and religious observances, Benedict's papal responsibilities have forced him to reduce his participation, which this year will amount to presiding over two Saturday seminars and lunch in the Castel Gandolfo gardens, as well as Mass for the group the following Sunday morning.

Each year, Benedict solicits suggestions before choosing the seminar topics and guest speakers, whose lectures serve as the basis for discussion. Past subjects have included the relationship between Islam and modernity, and the compatibility of evolution with the theology of creation.

Despite the regal setting of a 17th-century palace and the presence of a white-robed pope at the head table, discussions -- held almost exclusively in German -- follow the format of a graduate-school seminar. Each lecture is followed by questions and comments from around the room, which Benedict encourages in what students describe as his characteristically tactful style.

The matters under discussion are of course often relevant to the business of Benedict's day job, yet participants deny that they serve in any sense as a sounding board for papal policy."We're not talking about the next encyclical or what kind of bishops he's going to put in Belgium," said the Rev. Joseph D. Fessio, who studied under Ratzinger at Regensburg and now runs Ignatius Press, the English-language publisher of Benedict's books. "We're not discussing Vatican policies. It's academic."

Pope to be a professor for a day